Disappointment Builds Character

Nominate me now for Mom of the Year!!! Vote today! Mom of the Year today, President tomorrow!

It's this tale right here that's gonna clinch the award: three times in the past twenty-our hours have I taught my children the hard-boiled lesson of brooking disappointment.

Incident #1: Last night, Elliot took a miniscule bite of his tuna fish sandwich and three to four bites of his potato cheese soup (prepared by Spencer and I; it was a Weight Watcher recipe and will be made again in our house soon). So, I told him no sweets/treats/desserts later (my mom and I were going on a walk that would end up going past Smokey Row). At the time, he was fine with it. Later, my dad commissions my mom and I to stop by the store for peanut clusters (his sweet tooth attack). We brought them home, he opened them, and guess who wanted one? Yep. The kid who had eaten very little of his dinner earlier. I said no. I repeated it firmly a couple more times. Had I not been there, my dad would have totally let him chow down. Anyway, that was crying attack #1 - it was short-lived and we all survived.

Incident #2: Today, around 3:30, the older two get home from school and immediately go for a snack. No prob. I need to run some errands, and Elliot wants an apple to eat on the way. No prob. We get to my office, and it turns out there's cake in the faculty lounge. Spencer is offered a piece, Kirby declines, and Elliot wants one too. Except - he nibbled the skin off of his Pink Lady apple before handing it off to Kirby (apples, by the way, Brent informed me are, like, 89 cents an apple right now). So, by way of last night's example, no cake for Elliot. Crying attack #2, but again, he was done within ten minutes.

Incident #3: I'm picking up a few incidentals at Walmart (this is shortly after incident #2). In a weak moment, I am persuaded to buy a "Bop It" game. We play it in the aisles for several moments, laughing hysterically. What the heck, I think, I've been a hard ass the last day. We throw it in the cart, and I tell the kids explicitly, "No touching the Bop It. It's there now, and we'll play the crap out of it when we get home." Well, as we're waiting in line to play, Spencer is so bored and, while I'm distracted, he takes the game out of the cart to mess around with it. Huh. Well, I can't buy it for them now. So, yes, I make my kids put it back. And I was disappointed as well...it would have been fun to play. You should have seen Spencer's face. Very, very, very disappointed.

So yeah, I've been the Bad Mom the last day. However, it's possible my kids are better because of it.

Now gimme my trophy.