I'm the boss, applesauce

I tell my kids this darling expression, but I'm not sure they are buying it. Being with the little ones Full Time is an adjustment and while know it is an honor and privilege, I still have not gotten my groove back.

"Because I said so" did not work when I was a kid and it ain't working now. In the big scheme of things, my kids are amazing, curious, eccentric little whipper snappers and deserve to be celebrated in every way but when I'm on the phone arguing about the bogus $9.99 charge on my cell phone bill, those qualities become a thorn in my paw and I'm forced to make "the mean face" to try to quiet them. I remember the "mean face" when I was little and it made me feel like crap. I don't want them to feel like crap!

The reality is that my kids are not going to stop being kids so it is my job to adjust and adapt. Thank goodness for my husband who has patience when I don't and a great sense of humor that puts the children at ease when I get wound up too tight. I do the same for him and most of the time it all seems to work out. But after the monkeys have gone to sleep and the house is quiet; while Tim watches his macho monster truck sniper think tank programming and eats his watermelon, I sit alone in our room flipping through Tivo while surfing facebook and I think "was I too hard on them?"

Sometimes I go into their room and gently kiss them so that the love will touch their unconscious mind. I forget how much "power" parents have over their children. At least mine did over me. But this "power" doesn't occur to me in the throws of our day when I have asked them 5 times to stop playing ball in the house and yet a pink object bounces past my feet. Confucius say "ask once while you take the ball" ...problem solved. Sometimes I forget that you have to be "smart" about parenting.