Bad parenting exhibit 2287

Things have been a little crazy round here. As in "MOM I HAVE NO CLEAN SOCKS", "DOG HASN'T BEEN FED", "NO ONE HAS CHECKED MY HOMEWORK", "HAVEN'T TAKEN  A SHOWER", 90 messages on the voicemail kind of crazy. Kids haven't had a homecooked meal, senile dog crapping all over the house - the standards are pretty low people. If you came here to be inspired by mother of the year I fear you are misguided; look elsewhere. I am not your girl. Some weeks I make homeade bread and some weeks I work 90 hours a week. That's just the deal.  Work has been the priority; I'm not gonna lie. If noone's bleeding, I'm working. I'm not proud of it. It is what it is. But a few reminders of my incompetence at work life balance are noteworthy.

Megan, my 8 year old daughter  has been asking me to print a picture of her for at least a month. Her classmate has asked for a picture of her. I don't have any ink or paper so I keep putting her off.  Finally she took matters into her own hands and found her kindergarten class picture and butchered it thusly. I don't know why i find this so horrifying.  Is it that I will always keep this, wanting to see who her class was in 50 years ago only to know that 1) I don't remember any of them and 2) my bad parental habits will be memorialized forever? There are so many things you forget as a parent, good and bad. This isn't one of them since now I have something that will forever remind me of the fact that I have to prioritize and reprioritize on a seemingly hourly basis and sometimes I make the wrong choice. Do I finish what I have to do for work or do I take my daughter to girl scouts? Do I nap because I worked 16 hours yesterday and can't put a sentence together or do I go the the market?

A good friend of mine who is an MIT graduate and a very nice person once told her 1 year old to "shut the fuck up!". Am I a bad person that I find this funny? Maybe, you're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled not to care. Just because we are keeping it real over here doesn't mean my kids suffer. 

One of these days I am going to write a book called "kids are retarded" and it will involve lots of stories such as
1. Me telling the kids that I am ON A VERY IMPORTANT CALL - ABSOLUTE SILENCE IS A MUST! only to be followed by both kids parading around the house playing portable recorders and pianos.  On a good day the kids will give me sticky notes, "Can I have a snack?", "Megan loves you!". But this one killed me. When she gave it to me I started crying while on a 7 hour work conference call that went to 11 at night. I suck!!

2. I was in the tub the other day and Dan was downstrairs. Both the kids came upstairs into the tub to ask me if I had a pencil when their father was sitting right there in the living room. Seriously? WTF is that all about? Do I have a pencil? In the tub? Sadly I remember doing this to my mother and yet i am gainfully employed (much to my chagrin).

There are just too many other stories, the rest if to be written.....