Leila woke up to day not feeling well. She has a sore throat and wanted a lozenge first thing. Then she dragged around and whined, but ate her breakfast and got dressed. She actually said the words, "I don't want to go to school, I want to go back to bed." She never says that kind of stuff. She is all go the minute her feet hit the floor in the morning. I said that kind of stuff every day when I was her age. I never wanted to go to school.
She did not have a fever, but I gave her some Advil for her throat and her general malaise, crushed up in vanilla yogurt since she will not even entertain the idea of learning to take a pill. She has just given up on that possibility for life, and thinks that when she's 30 she will just crush up pills in yogurt. I even bought tictacs so she could practice, and it was the most dramatic act of swallowing - or rather, attempted swallowing - anyone has ever seen. Gagging, tears, sheesh.
Before I realized she really wasn't feeling well, I yelled at her for leaving a pair of dirty undies on the floor of her closet less than 24 hours after I told her not to do that anymore, and less than 24 hours after I'd cleaned out her drawers. I had just put a white load in. Its so annoying! She wanted to explain how they got there, but I assured her there was no possible explanation that would make it okay to not put dirty undies in the hamper that is right across the hall from her room. I told her the next time I found dirty undies on the floor, she would have to give me $5.
Her walking buddy was ten minutes late, and Leila looked like she was going to cry when I shoved her out the front door.
I don't really have a lot of moments when I doubt my mothering. I probably should, but I have a maybe unreasonable confidence in my parenting. But this morning, I had doubts. Should I have kept her home? Did I need to yell about underwear? Did I need to nag her about her back pack? She had a crap morning, and I just told her, "You'll make it, you'll be fine, have some Advil."
After she was gone, I noticed she had forgotten her lunch. She really didn't need that this morning. So I threw on some sweats, and hopped in my car wearing my slippers and drove toward the school and intercepted the girls at the shopping center and handed her her lunch, which she hadn't noticed she'd forgotten.
Does that redeem that bad mom part?
4 comments:
that wasn't great parenting :( if she's sick let her stay home, your supposed to nurture her not send her to school where she could get other kids sick, trying to get your kid to pay you for making a mistake is pretty twisted, as is not letting her explain, EVEN if there was in your eyes no explanation for what she did she should still be aloud to try, i think your a very mean mum and yelling at your child is never ok, i NEVER yell at my son
agreed also you in no way redeemed your self, what you did was dangerous to your child's health and it would have been very wrong not to take her her lunch so it doesn't actually redeem anything
Wow, you should just take me out back and shoot me!
(she was completely fine, by the way, not sick at all, as it turns out. Maybe I know my kid better than you think I do?)
New reader, not caught up on your blog, unsure how old she is. But I say Good mom: you thought about it and questioned yourself afterward. (And I can tell, had she truly been sick, you would've beaten yourself up for days over it). The underwear yell: totally normal. Lunch: you did the right thing. Bad moms never bother to consider if they might've handled it better or differently. Had she been sick enough not to get thru school, the school nurse would have called you shortly. As for the pill swallowing thing, here's how my kids mastered it: first, I casually commented that the pill is so much smaller than a bite of chicken or apple or whatever favorite food the kid has swallowed. Then I told the kids that the reason pill swallowing feels so hard to do is because it's in their mind that it will be hard since it's new/different, again remind how it's so much smaller than food they swallow everyday. Then I let them squish the pill into a slice of banana. Chew banana just enough to feel ready to swallow, but not enough to crush the pill in their teeth. Banana slides down the throat very easily, and along with it goes the pill! My youngest, 7, now prefers to dry swallow his pill (daily Zyrtec, children's Advil when needed) - the banana is just too much trouble. Heck, I can't even dry swallow a pill without discomfort, lol. Try the banana trick. It works!
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