Why I’ll never pass judgment again…

 

Before I was a mother, I would see women at the grocery store, or Wal-Mart completely disheveled, looking as if they hadn’t showered in a month with crumpled t-shirts and baggy sweat pants dragging a child behind them as they repeatedly took whatever item their toddler had swiped from the shelf and put it back where it belonged. I’ll admit it. I was judgmental. Why can’t these women take a shower? Why can’t they put on clean/properly fitting clothes? Would a little make-up hurt them? I’LL never look like that when I’m a mother! I’ll have perfectly styled hair. I’ll never leave the house without at least a little bit of mascara or lip gloss. And most importantly, my children will act like angels when we’re in public! Ahhhh…how blissfully ignorant I was.

Let’s take last Friday for example. Ray got called into work early, and since it was Parent/Teacher Conference at school that left me to take both my hoodlums angels with me. It will be fine I reassured myself. No need to worry. We’ll go in, talk about Blaine’s progress, get his report card and we’ll go. Ummmm…yeah. I’m not sure what kind of fantasy world I was living in Friday morning, but by Friday evening I fell back to the real world with a painful thud. Here’s what happened. Blaine did cart wheel’s around his class room. Ryder pulled all the books off the bookshelf. Blaine decided to stick his FINGER in the teacher’s cupcake she had sitting on her desk with her dinner because not only does this poor woman have to teach my child 5 days a week, she has to stay until 9 in the evening talking to parents like me who don’t have enough sense to leave their children with a baby sitter so they can have an adult discussion. There were many more things my children did before we left that classroom 20 minutes later, but I’ll spare myself the embarrassment  you the details. Suffice it to say, I left her room with my head hung in shame, feeling like the worst mother to ever grace that teacher’s presence.

As for that disheveled mother at the store?? Yeah, that’s me now. Because every time I  dare to take a shower and/or put on some make up/clean clothes/fix my hair I come down stairs to this…

Ryder Mario! What have you done now??

Why yes, that is his father standing there in the background. No, he had “no idea” how our little video game character found some chocolate. Or ate it. Or smeared it all over himself. And the bar. And the new bar stools. Swear! He was right there the whole time!! Oh, well come to think of it, yeah, he did have Sports Center on…

Guess who got to clean up the mess? It wasn’t the freshly showered parent :)

I have to admit though, in the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if Ryder got chocolate everywhere. Or that while at the grocery store Blaine said loudly “That woman has a big butt!” about the woman less than a foot away. (yeah, he may be lacking an internal filter) Because in 5 years, these stories will be funny. And they’ll be great memories that I’ll have when my babies are no longer 3 or 6 and are too cool the cuddle with me, or too busy to run errands with me. Come to think of it, I may even miss their mischief then. But for now, it’s still going to drive me batty. ;)