Apparently, many families have house rules like no eating upstairs or no jumping on the beds. I have not made many house rules, in part because the children have bunk beds and it's hard to enforce the no eating upstairs thing when a) you are not home and b) you keep snacks in your own bedroom. Also, my children are older and have a lot of common sense. However, apparently when you fill out a bunch of forms for the school about your child's needs, the fact that you don't have rules for the house shows up as a problem and you become in danger of being labeled a bad parent, or at least an ineffective one. So tonight I am setting limits and I am determined to enforce them. There will be bedtimes and they will be observed. The children don't look like this anymore, but I miss the days when bedtime was when I put them in their crib and not when they were "sortofmostly" finished with their homework.
Before I had children, I was a perfect parent and I always swore that my kids would go to bed at 8. However, after I actually gave birth to the children and discovered that naturally, they would go to bed at 9:30 and sleep until 9 am, and then when I discovered that if I got them to sleep at 8 they would be up at 7:30, then I figured, why push it? So the kids have always gone to bed a little later. Plus, I only have so many hours to be with them after work, so I haven't pushed the bedtime. But now, I will because the school thinks I am a bad parent and that is the reason Child 3 is behind on her homework. I could try explaining that it is all Husband's fault for going to Afghanistan, but then I would be an irresponsible parent, as well as a slacker who doesn't set limits and can't make her daughter do her homework. Also, if you know me, the idea that I don't give the children limits is laughable. But still. We'll try the bedtime thing, but that also means they won't be able to talk to Husband because he won't have woken up by the time they go to bed. Stupid 8 1/2 hour time difference.
The people in this village in Turkey are having a worse day than me. They had a footbridge over a creek much like this one.
When they went to bed, it was there, and when they woke up in the morning ready to use it, it was gone. Completely. The whole entire bridge. Authorities think it was cut up and sold for scrap. So now the residents of the village have to take off their shoes and wade across the creek. So thank you, bridge stealers, for making me grateful that the river I cross each morning is too big to steal the bridges from overnight. No way you're carving up the 14th St. bridge in one night. And thank you for reminding me how nice it is to wade across a stream in your bare feet on a hot day. When you want to, of course, not when someone has stolen your bridge!
Before I had children, I was a perfect parent and I always swore that my kids would go to bed at 8. However, after I actually gave birth to the children and discovered that naturally, they would go to bed at 9:30 and sleep until 9 am, and then when I discovered that if I got them to sleep at 8 they would be up at 7:30, then I figured, why push it? So the kids have always gone to bed a little later. Plus, I only have so many hours to be with them after work, so I haven't pushed the bedtime. But now, I will because the school thinks I am a bad parent and that is the reason Child 3 is behind on her homework. I could try explaining that it is all Husband's fault for going to Afghanistan, but then I would be an irresponsible parent, as well as a slacker who doesn't set limits and can't make her daughter do her homework. Also, if you know me, the idea that I don't give the children limits is laughable. But still. We'll try the bedtime thing, but that also means they won't be able to talk to Husband because he won't have woken up by the time they go to bed. Stupid 8 1/2 hour time difference.
The people in this village in Turkey are having a worse day than me. They had a footbridge over a creek much like this one.
When they went to bed, it was there, and when they woke up in the morning ready to use it, it was gone. Completely. The whole entire bridge. Authorities think it was cut up and sold for scrap. So now the residents of the village have to take off their shoes and wade across the creek. So thank you, bridge stealers, for making me grateful that the river I cross each morning is too big to steal the bridges from overnight. No way you're carving up the 14th St. bridge in one night. And thank you for reminding me how nice it is to wade across a stream in your bare feet on a hot day. When you want to, of course, not when someone has stolen your bridge!
Psssst! Anybody wanna buy a bridge cheap?
ReplyDeletexoxo,
Artie-who-don't-need-no-steeenkin-bedtime-and-knows-you're-a-good parent