My Biggest Mistakes... Part One

Admitting mistakes seems to be kinda popular these days. Michael Phelps, Bachelor Jason, Bush, Obama.. just google " admits mistakes" and see what comes up. It's trendy. " My bad. Do over!" Four words! That's all it takes and you have a clean slate!

Well, I'll take a few more than 4 words:

Allowing my 2 year old child to dictate her menu.

The headaches this has caused in the 10 years since she was 2 is astonishing. I THOUGHT I was doing a nice thing--that it was just a phase and eventually the child would eat whatever I put in front of her.
WRONG! Now she eats even fewer foods than when she was 2. We have had to do some serious brain work to overcome this. She has always been right on target for both height and weight. She has matured properly, careening into womanhood at 11 . But the mental anguish it has taken to get her here is mind boggling!

She is now old enough to make her own dinners when she doesn't like what I am serving. She knows ( and I monitor) that she needs a carb, protein and fruit/veggie at each meal. She knows to take her vitamins ( plural: multi and calcium since she does not drink milk) and is very good about it. But at what cost? What could I have done with that time and energy? The world may never know.

Family Movie Night

On the surface this sounds like a great family bonding experience. Only our choices of movies has been less than desirable.

By the time we figured out that Meet The Fockers was not as cute as the original it was too late. The damage was done. Yes, in retrospect the title should have warned us- but we just were not that bright. Ditto Dodgeball. Ditto Napoleon Dynamite. The latter has my now 4 yr old screaming " Tina! Eat the Friggin' Ham!" whenever the word "Ham" or "Tina" is used in daily conversation.

I thought that watching Almost Famous with my 10 yr old wanna be rocker would be fun. I even sent him out of the room at the de-virgining and overdose scenes. Sadly, all he got from it is the quote he screams whenever he finds himself standing on something like a ladder or step stool : " I'm on drugs!" Then he jumps.

Listening To Top 40 Radio in the Car

Other moms warned me to always listen to Barney, or Radio Disney, or Mr Stinkeyfeet...The Wiggles.. ANYTHING kid. But my ears can't take it. They started to bleed by the time the first child was 18 months old. My choice would have been Album Oriented Rock.. or Rock of my generation. But I needed something bouncier, so I flipped over to top 40. Here in KC that is Mix93. I justified it by saying that I am a Sr High Youth Leader and Sunday School teacher-- I NEED to know what those kids are listening to.
Because of that choice, my kids could rap along with Eminem at a very young age. Jr Rocker was headbanging in his carseat to Everclear and Lenny Kravitz before his second birthday. We switched to the CDs of our own youth when the littlest guy came along. Because of this, instead of bringing Barney's greatest hits to show and tell-- it was Journey's Greatest Hits. The kid knows all the lyrics to his favorite song " Wheel in the sky." He does not know all the lyrics to Wheel on the Bus.

As mistakes go this is probablyh one I would make again--ok, am still making. I just can not tolerate kiddie music ALL THE TIME. A happy mommy makes for a safe driver. That ear bleeding can be really distracting!

AT THE TIME these all seemed like good choices. When we weighed the positives and the negatives we came up with with our decision. We have to stand by them, of course and we have to repeat the words of Maya Angelou: " When you know better, you do better." Which basically says " My bad. Do Over."