It's a trip!: Bad mommy

06 November 2005

Bad mommy

My 4 yr old, Liam, can be quite a handful. His angelic smile and cuteness disguise a devious little soul. He insists on doing everything by himself, and hates needing help for anything. He also, like any other little boy, likes getting into things he's not supposed to.

My 11 yr old helps us out a lot with him--I didn't realize quite how much until she slept over at a friend's house Friday night. On weekend mornings, Amelia gets up with Liam, gets him breakfast and plays with him for a couple of hours until it's a decent time for us old folk to get up. He'd been having lots of nightmares lately, so we put him in bed with us to cut out the bed transfer at 2 am.

In the morning my little angel managed to sneak out of bed (he was in between us) without waking either of us up. He went downstairs and apparently decided he was all grown up and didn't need us for anything.

I guess Liam still felt a bit sleepy and so wanted a cup of coffee--just like Daddy. He poured a cup (!), added cream and sugar, then figured it would be fun to mix the two together. So he poured the sugar into the creamer, and then poured that back into the sugar bowl.

After that job, he was hungry. He made microwave popcorn for breakfast--and burned the crap out of it. I have no idea how long he put it in for, but I'm really really glad he didn't burn the house down.

He got into just about everything he could--and did it all very quietly so he wouldn't wake us up. I have no idea why he eventually decided to come and get us up--maybe he was lonely?--but thankfully he did before anything really disastrous happened. It did make me feel like the bad mom of the year, though.

So we've now made taking care of Liam on weekend morning an official chore for Amelia. Not sure if that adds to the bad mom designation or not, but I don't care. He's being looked after, Amelia gets money, and mom and dad get to sleep in. Win win. Works for me!

posted by Julie at 4:56 PM 6 comments

6 Comments:

Renee Nefe said...: I only have the one kid. But the foods she can have are placed on the bottom shelf of the pantry...no cooking required. And when she was little we left cups of her drinks on the bottom shelf of the frig.
But DD is a sleeper (in fact she's still asleep right now...but that's a slumber party hang-over!)
Glad that you figured out a plan...hope your DD is willing to do it for you. :D; Mon Nov 07, 03:07:00 PM GMT
Jen said...: Well, Maya started an actual fire in the microwave when I was in the next room. At least you were asleep!; Mon Nov 07, 08:58:00 PM GMT
mommyguilt said...: Oh, and I thought I had a good one, but I think Jen topped me. Yesterday, SmallBoy decided he wanted chocolate milk. Well, I was out of chocolate syrup, so he decided to take a chocolate bar and melt it down into liquid form, pour into the milk and, voila! Chocolate Milk.

Nope.

Chocolate bars are not made for melting in the microwave. They're made for burning in the microwave. He felt so bad, he was still apologizing for it tonight. I felt so bad because I wasn't supervising...I mean, hell, he's 9. I let him make eggs by himself!

Julie- not a bad mama at all. You SO deserve the rest. On the weekends, unless we have to shuttle someone to a practice, PC and I try to sleep, or at least stay in bed, until at least 9 or 10 - if not later! The kids can take care of each other!; Tue Nov 08, 04:34:00 AM GMT
Julie said...: Thanks for all the reassurance, fellow moms! I don't feel quite so bad now. :); Wed Nov 09, 04:05:00 PM GMT
Anonymous said...: Hey, my Big kids help out with the little ones every morning. IN fact I don't think I have gotten them breakfast in a year. Dylan and Madi always get up really early and make breakfast for the little ones.; Thu Nov 10, 02:56:00 PM GMT
Lora said...: At that age kids can be quite a heartattack. They are savy enough to figure things our, smart enough to do it when your guard is down and still to young to have the sense to know when they've gone overboard.; Wed Nov 16, 06:37:00 AM GMT