Good Mommy (for a day)

Those of you mothers out there may be able to relate to my day today. It was a "good Mommy" day. Okay, so some of you are probably just actually good Mommies. Not posers like myself. But every once in a while I get a glimpse of what life must be like for those children who have actual good mommies.

Andrew had school today, so I knew we needed a slow kind of morning. I'll tell you all about Andrew's school some other day...today is about my good mommy day. Anyway, I knew we needed a slow morning so Andrew would have enough juice left for his afternoon school time. It's rough going to afternoon preschool when you are used to being in your bed asleep during that time. I jest. He rarely sleeps anymore. But at least in your room having "quiet time". I jest yet again. In your room throwing books and toys, playing with the blinds, and jumping on the bed while your mother hides downstairs pretending that you are sleeping so she doesn't have to look at you for an hour or two. Yea...that's about right.

So...a slow morning. I SUCK at slow mornings. I hear about other mothers and how much fun they have with pajama days. Just hanging out at home. Not me. Although my job title is "Stay-at-home-mother", there is nothing more I dread than the prospect of staying at home. It's rather like a doctor of internal medicine getting queasy at the thought of internal organs or a very dirty cleaning lady. I'm a bit of an oxymoron. Or at least the moron part. :)

Are you lost in this story yet? I seem to be writing in the stream of consciousness style this evening.

Andrew woke up at the blessedly late hour of 7:30. That gave me 40 minutes alone with my little morning dove. She is such a happy thing in the morning. Andrew got up, we ate breakfast. And then the first good mommy thing happened. I gave my kids a bath.

That's right...a bath. Both of them. Not together, but both of them. See, I'm a terrible mother. I don't bathe my children very much. It just gets away from me. In the winter I can blame it on dry skin...it's for their own good. I don't have much of an excuse in the summer...but they swim in the pool, so most the dirt gets washed off by chemicals and people don't notice. Damn gym class for Andrew puts stamps on their hands...so I have to bathe him in time for the next class, or else they'll notice that my poor neglected kid still has last week's stamp on him.

So...score one for Mommy...baths! They even got lotion on afterwards. 2 points.

Then Lily took a nap...in her crib. And rather than do the dishes, check my e-mail or just generally daydream, I played with Andrew. We practiced using scissors and cut out pictures from magazines and pasted them onto construction paper. Lily woke up, and we used some yarn from sewing cards to make obstacle courses. We played zooming Lily (which involved zooming Lily at Andrew over and over and over). We only watched 30 minutes of TV. We laughed, we cried, we had a great time together. What bonding! What learning! What fun! And then we had lunch and went to school. I was less good when Andrew came back from school, but no matter because I was still glowing from my maternal magnificence of the morning.

Sad, isn't it? I feel like it was such a good day just because I played with my kid and made him clean. I know some of you are shocked. You may even want to post a comment pretending like you are equally poor mothers. I appreciate the sentiment. I don't feel guilty about my "normal" days...dirty kids and wandering on errands just to get out of the house. That's just how I am. Andrew seems happy and well-adjusted. He obviously doesn't need me, so I'm good enough a mother for him. But as tired as I am this evening, I salute you, Mothers-who-regularly-are-exceptional. You are better women than me.

On the schedule for tomorrow? Nothing. YIKES! I'd better think of some pointless task to get us out of the house! I can't pull off two days of creative parenting in a row. I wouldn't want to raise the bar ;)