Things I'm Rubbish At As a Mother

I rock at making lists.  I may even be the best list maker you've ever met.  I make to-do lists, wish lists, priority lists, and I constantly have a grocery list going.  (That one usually starts about 5 minutes after I get home from the store.  Sigh.)  Between my love of making lists and love of reading lists, you'd think that I would have linked up with Monday Listicles before now. The truth is, I've never joined because:

1. I was on an extended writing break when Monday Listicles began.
2. Once I returned to blogging, I limited myself to one post a week to protect both my sanity and that of my husband/editor/person-who-bears-the-brunt-of-my-attitude-when-I'm-stressed.
3. There are so many stories I want to tell, that coming up with new material for the list topics stresses me out.  And self-induced stress is not really fair.  Refer to reason #2.

(See?  Me.  Lists.  Like this...imagine fingers intertwined.)

But this week is completely different.  You see, after my last post, not only was I looking for a pressure free writing experience (any success at all gives me panic-stricken writers block), the subject of the list, "Things I'm Rubbish At," is something I spend more time thinking about than any normal person should.  I don't have to come up with any new material for this one!  In fact, my mental list of things to improve on is so long, that I'm narrowing the field down to


Things I'm Rubbish At As a Mother:

1. Icing/Decorating cakes. Yes, it is true that cake decorating is not strictly for mothers, but looking at the cakes my Facebook friends make for their children makes me feel very sorry for my boys, who are lucky to get runny polka dots on their unevenly iced birthday cakes.

2. Letting my husband handle the discipline. Horribly embarrassing as it is, I often occasionally jump in while my husband is disciplining one (or two) of our children.  It's not that he doesn't know what he's doing.  We've read the same books.  We have the same outlook.  The same goals.  I know that getting involved is undermining my husband's authority with our children; I just have so much more experience with discipline issues due to the sheer amount of time I spend with our boys, that sometimes I can't stop myself from opening my big mouth.  I'm working on it.  I promise.

3. Keeping a clean house.  If you've been to my house, you probably think I'm full of it, and if you think that, then I've pulled it off.  I'm good at tidy.  Can't stand clutter. Everything is in it's place, even that button my husband so cleverly placed on a slip of paper labeled, "buttons go here."  But actually cleaning, with cleaning products and all the related paraphernalia, is not my area of expertise.

4. Cooking. It's not so much that I can't cook, more that I don't, unless it's peanut butter cookies.  I quit around the time Baby C was born, so there's a small chance I will redeem myself in the future.  At this point, though, if Hubby is flying, you can pretty much guarantee we'll be eating sandwiches for dinner.  Otherwise, he does the cooking, and since he is awesome at it, and I'm busy blogging feeding the baby, I don't feel guilty at all.  (Okay, maybe a little bit.)

5. Teaching Spanish.  Before E was born, I took intensive Spanish language lessons.  Intensive, meaning the class consisted of two people, me being one of them, that met with a teacher three hours a week for over a year.  I learned a lot, and I had big plans of speaking Spanish with my bilingual children, primarily to connect with their heritage (one set of my husband's grandparents was raised with Spanish as their first language), but also to prepare them for the future.  Ummm...I just finished reading the Spanish version of "Brown Bear" to my two year old in English and my four year old can't even count to five in Espanol.  If I used Twitter, I'd have to type #parentingfail.

6. Breaking the schedule. Skipping nap.  Dinner at a different time.  Late to bed.  Just thinking of it makes me twitchy.  The boys handle a change in schedule much better than I do, but since I'm the one that makes most of the decisions, unless its a really, really, really special occasion, we'll stick with the schedule, folks.

7. Being cool with destruction and danger.  Basically, being cool with boy stuff. I know it's natural for the boys to want to throw whatever they can lift, jump off anything they can climb, run like escapees from the looney bin, and get grass stains on every piece of clothing they own, it's just not natural for me to enjoy watching it.

8. Correcting Language.  You'd like a sandwich with "honey and jelly"? And some "cheese bunny makers"?  Even when I put that peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Cheddar Snack Mix in front of them, I won't say it correctly.  It's just too cute to stop them, when they're going to stop too soon, as it is.

9. Letting things slide. I cannot go to bed with dishes in the sink, clean clothes in a pile, or toys on the floor.  I just can't, even though, sometimes, I should.

10. Living in the moment. With all the things that need to be done around here, and all that I plan for, living in the moment is the hardest for me.  Luckily, I have three very good teachers, and they haven't given up on me yet.