Running Red Momma

I experienced a frustrating day with my toddler a few days ago. Time outs, choices and feeble attempts at humor did not convince her to dress. Instead, fear and brute force won the day.  As I agonized and guilted over my decision as I gave the play-by-play to my sister, she asked me if I tried being fun. I have been a mom for a while.  This is one area I cannot do.  I am careful to be educational, act firm, be loving and hard-working, not call names or yell, but dammit do I have to be fun?!!!  This is a too painful reminder of my many years of teaching high school.  I could use every strategy I knew, reward systems, group learning, investigations, projects and so forth but gosh darn-it I wasn't fun.  The former yahooo basketball coach could do the same crap day- in -day- out with a dose of insulting humor/fun; he was still considered a cool teacher. The sad thing is, I didn't know I would be an unfun grown-up. I thought I would be fun and silly. But I don't think I am.  I s

Driving along the road today I saw: Free Pie and Dessert 6 pm.   See I'm not a cake girl, I love pie--coconut, chocolate, apple, banana cream or cherry.  As I looked for more info, I realized it was a church function. And not mine.  Sheesh! Why don't we do pie?  That has got to be better than knocking doors.  Still, I really wasn't ready for a life change or ready to pretend I wanted some good ol' time religion.  I passed.  As I drove, I soothed myself with the assurance it was apple from a can, fake banana and runny coconut.  But really,  I think they are onto something.

My son has been learning to count.  He gets the teens but not the weird twelve.  Today, as we watched kids line up for the bus, he wondered who was a teenager.  I explained what a teenager was by the number of their age.  He looked at me and said it was the tight pants.  Teenagers wear tight pants.  Yeah, I guess that works.  Much better than my definition of snarly and disaffected.