Friday, February 11, 2011

Mother of the Year

This is the first installment of what I will call the "Mother of the Year" moments.  This is where I will remind myself, my friends, and someday with my kids of the less than stellar moments I have had as a parent.  The situations when I have embarrassed myself or my kids, done something I never thought I would do, or frankly, when my kids have embarrassed me to the point that I turn to strangers and claim to only be their babysitter.  I often try to laugh it off, hold back expletives, grin at the people around me and say, "Mother of the Year right here." You know those moments and I want you to share yours too as they come up!

I have decided to kick this one off with a recent story when my lovely 3 year old, "J" let her competitive side rear its ugly head.  In order to paint the picture fully, you must know that "J" has the fairest of skin and bleach blond hair and can look terribly sweet and innocent...at times.  During the winter months, you will find her, along with her sisters and I, sitting in the stands for 2-4 hours cheering our 6 year old, "PT", onto victory at various wrestling tournaments.  The girls get bored so I usually pack stuff to do and tons of snacks.  As a rule, I make them stop what they are doing when "PT" is wrestling so that they can cheer him on.  Well, "J" did just that a few weeks ago.  I was not paying a lot of attention to her yet I could see her pumping her little arms in the air and could hear her repeat a simple chant.  I bent down to hear her more clearly and was horrified at what I heard in her loudest preschool sized voice..."CHOKE HIM!  CHOKE HIM!"

I quickly looked around at all of the parents around me that were from other schools to see if they heard too.  If so, I knew right where the exit was.  I stopped her, corrected her, and gave her ideas of what was OK to chant. She just looked at me like, "What? I'm cheering like you told me to."  By the way, he won and no parents attacked me with their cow-bell.

Let it be known, we do not cheer like that nor do we choke our kids at home so I don't want to hear any of you saying, "Where'd she learn that?"  I am telling you that this kid is gifted in the way of surprising us with her words and actions.  The only thing we can think of is that a few weeks earlier "PT" was choked in a match and it really upset him and he lost that match.  She had to have known that it wasn't a good thing and she just didn't seem to care.  She just wanted him to win. 

That was a proud moment for us as parents.  However, "H" and I find our selves laughing about it quite a bit when no one is around.  That kid is a hoot and we are in trouble in the future!  Has your kid embarrassed you recently or is it just me??

2 comments:

Dana said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dana said...

Not just you. I think we have had this conversation recently and you recommended the, "That's a good discussion for the van!" Brooke still enjoys pointing out excessive girth on people, particularly when we are well within earshot of said people. I can usually see it coming so I try my best to distract her.

Is it ok that I laughed at the, "Choke him!" comments? J cracks me up.