Parenting Fail

If you have not yet discovered the greatness that is Rants From Mommyland, you need to check it out. I laugh every time I read their posts. They say the things that I won't say in my blog because I'm afraid to be judged. That could be the reason why they write for the Huffington Post and a newspaper in DC and I have eleven followers.

Anyway...

I'm totally stealing the idea behind their Parenting Fail posts.

I usually put my children to bed without the aid of sippy cups, books or movies. I'm mean that way. I have this totally unreasonable expectation that children should go to bed and be asleep soon thereafter instead of watching ten episodes of Phineas and Ferb.

Since I now live with my mother (which is fodder for innumerable posts), I sometimes have to cave and go against my best parenting judgment in order to keep the peace. One night last week I was working on a quilt that needed to be finished. When I'm working on a project, I'm working and I don't let much distract me, including screaming, climbing, destroying toddlers. My mother is not blessed with toddler blindness and deafness. She finally marched them into their bedroom and demanded that I put something on for them to watch, with the unspoken threat 'or else'.

I started some Handy Manny, or as Jack calls it 'Hammy Hammy' and left them to veg out while I went back to work and my mom went back to Law and Order. I went to check on the boys a while later, only to find that Hammy Hammy was over and The Godfather was now playing.

Yep, My two- and three-year-old sons were watching Don Corleone and getting such sage pieces of wisdom as, "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Adam said, "Mom, Hammy Hammy is over. You should turn off the TV now."

If I find a severed horse's head in my bed, I'll have no one to blame but myself. Even though I deserve it.