When You're The Bad Mommy

At least once a week MAS and Eggberta and I go to a playspace at a church not far from our Carroll Gardens apartment. The space is open and the woman who runs it friendly. The first two hours are open play, followed by snack time, clean up time and circle time. Once circle time is done, we go home for lunch. They both usually fall asleep on the way home. All in all a good deal for $12.

But something happened there Monday that’s got me thinking.

First off, let me say that MAS is a spirited child. He’s just got more energy than any of the other kids we’ve run into here in Brooklyn. Second, my kids are only a year and a half apart. (Not 100%  planned, but that’s a post for another day.) Third: I don’t always handle my current situation with the grace I’d envisioned I would when I was on bed rest with Eggberta. There. I said it.

Enough preface, here’s the story. (It’s a small one, mind you.)

MAS had a temper tantrum when we had to put our toys away and go to circle time. He’s 2. It happens. But as he was writhing on the ground—very dramatic of him, no?—he banged his head on a chair. After another struggle, I finally got him into the rug where all the other kids were assembled for circle time. Phew, I thought to myself. And we settled in: Eggberta on one knee, MAS on the other. We sang one song. We sang another. Then he got up and darted across the room to the toy house. I got up to retrieve him and said, “Honey, it’s circle time.” Repeat three times. After the last retrieval, I started to frustrated. Eggberta started fussing. The other mothers stared at me. And—here’s the crux, folks—I was embarrassed. All the other kids were sitting quietly for circle time and my son was pin-balling around the room. I got up one more time, retrieving him, but this time he sort of collapsed and threw himself to the floor crying. And in that moment I felt angry, really angry at him for not sitting quietly like the others. Then the woman who runs the playspace and who leads the circle time, the woman I think is so nice and so kind, said in an exasperated voice, “Oh, please, he’s just playing. He’s teasing you.”

I felt called out and judged in the worst way. And for the remainder of circle time I felt ashamed, like the most terrible mother in the whole world.

But as I was walking home, pushing my ginormous stroller with two now sleeping kids, I realized that she was actually right. Yes, it’s important for him to learn to follow the rules and yes it was right to retrieve him and not let him run wild. But to get embarrassed? To get angry? Especially because I felt judged by other mothers? I wasn’t acting in the best interest of my child in that moment; it was all about my own ego, about how I was being perceived as a mother.

Of course it wasn’t right for her to call me out that way. If she thought I was overreacting then a better approach would have been to take me aside after the session… I’ll go back—choices in Winter are few and far between here in the wilds of Brooklyn—but still my enthusiasm for the place has definitely cooled.

Have there been any times you’ve lost your cool as a Mom and reacted in a way you’re not proud of? Or felt judged by others in a non-constructive, non-helpful fashion?

Let the weaning begin...

I love Brooklyn, I really do. But in Winter? I understand why so many older New Yorkers flee to Florida as soon as they can.

Why?

Take a look at this picture I took outside my building.

That's the sidewalk & street.

Now, okay. Forget about driving. Who wants to dig a car out anyway? But walking? Try getting a single stroller through that mess, let alone my clunker of a double. So instead Mas, Eggberta and I have been trapped inside our once-spacious-seeming apartment for DAYS. All of our toys are boring.

But thank god for facebook/twitter: one status update and two friends I haven't seen since high school graduation in May '91 sent me a couple of recipes for home-made playdough. Sweet!

Mas is napping now--in his stroller, which is the only place he'll nap post toddler-bed transition--and so I took the opportunity to give little Eggberta her first taste of solid food: sweet potatoes. She loves it. In fact, take a look:

See that? She's grabbing the spoon and pulling it toward her face!

Unlike Mas at that age, who, upon his first taste of avocado promptly spit it out in disgust.

He likes food now, mind you. Particularly ice cream, but he'll also eat beans, lentils, and edamame. But man was it a hard row at first. He prefered mama's milk, you see. And food he could take or leave.

But I have high hopes for Eggberta. Two more days of sweet potatoes then we're moving on to avocados. Exciting times chez nous, non?

Required Reading

Last night, after three rounds of The Hungry Caterpillar, I told now two-year old MAS that he could have one more book, then, yes, yes, it was bedtime after all. (Now that he's in a toddler bed, bedtime has become a series of carefully orchestrated negotiations and trade-offs. More on that in the coming weeks, though.)

So MAS toddles off to the bookcase where a series of his books & ours live intermingled. He spends a good minute or two carefully scanning the choices before he selects one and bounds back to where I'm sitting, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Read," he commands and hands me this: