Lesson Learned

I did not want to be making a mouse trap car at 6am. I did not want to be yelling at my 12 yr old at 6am. I did not want to miss my morning run with my 12  yr old this morning. I did not want to have to race around trying to make lunches at the last minute for my children this morning. I did not want to start my day out crabby and tired and questioning my parenting abilities. So, why did I start out my day this way, when I sooooo badly did not want to? Because I am an enabler. I.....AM.....AN....ENABLER. Saying it out loud (or writing it in all caps) feels a little like what I would expect it feels like to be in AA or admit to cheating on your husband or something. Shame. Absolute shame. It is quite my fault that my 12 yr old was able to get up this morning at 6am for our run and calmly mention that he still had a bit of homework to do, which turned out to be a huge end of the school year project where he and 2 classmates were to work together to create a mousetrap car that could travel 5 meters. 5 meters! His car, after the hour of racing around at the crack of dawn to try to pull something together, traveled negative one inch. And accompanying this negative one inch race show was a crazy woman of 36  yelling and huffing and puffing and lecturing about time management and doing projects more than "half-ass" and who knows what else.

I have saved my children from failure too many times. I am not sure if my son learned a lesson this morning, but I sure did, and if I can be strong, and let them fail more often, hopefully they will learn a lesson before it is too late. Next time (because there will be a next time) I will calmly say to the child who says - "oh, I forgot to do some homework" - "Oh, that is too bad for you. Bummer." and then I will have my coffee, make lunches, and drive them all to school, and guess what, the mousetrap car can't travel any less than it did this morning even with all my worry, craziness and commotion anyway.

Also I do not want to forget:
-had a little b-day party today with Charlie and 2 of his buddies, and all three of their big brothers. We went to Build a Bear and let the birthday boys build animals. They were so adorable. Then we went to the food court where we all ate chic fillet and had pirate cupcakes and sang to them. Easiest birthday party ever.
At the "party" my Charlie had a couple of 3 yr old moments. At one point he was going sort of bizerk in the stroller. I noticed numerous mall patrons staring and raising their eyebrows - apparently they never had kids or forgot what it is like. I started to feel frustrated with him and be short with him when I looked at my 2 friends with me who have just little ones - and remembered how patient I was when I just had one or 2. I explained everything to my first son - "Scotty, we are going to leave the food court now, because we will be riding in the super fun elevator in just 10 seconds if we hurry!" "Scotty, we have to leave the play area now, but soon we will come back here for another day of fun, and right now I need your help to find a perfect gift for daddy..." Why on my 5th kid have I forgotten how to have patience sometimes? So, I parked Charlie on the side of the mall walk, and I went around to the front of his stroller and explained to him, "Charlie, we have to leave the food court now because all of our friends are up ahead waiting for us, and we are going to ride in the elevator! and then we will take our new Build a Bear home and play with it!" Charlie: "ok." As my friend said to me as we were walking to our cars, man I can't imagine how it must feel to be told what to do constantly, fed the food we want them to eat constantly, and be pushed where we need them to go constantly.  I mean sometimes we just need them to do, and eat and be what we need, but I feel for them not feeling like they have a choice. A little explanation or giving them the feeling that they have a choice goes a long way.