Day 157 The Perfect Mom Project

It was a silent carpool ride yesterday morning. Avery and I had gotten into a verbal tussle over some papers that she needed signed for school just before we were leaving and we both were angry. According to Avery, I had plenty of time to sign the papers for her. I did not agree. These papers were for the new teachers she has for second semester. She did not give them to me until later in the evening the night before, and she actually tried to hand them to me when I was in the middle of something else. At the time I asked her to put them on the kitchen counter and I would look at them later.


There was a disagreement about what later meant yesterday morning. Avery must consider later to mean “I will jump right up and sign those papers my precious!” and I consider later to mean “When I get a chance I will take care of it, get them out of my face!” This problem with translation led to the silent car ride. Avery was very concerned that the teachers would hold her up in front of the class as an example of a student that did not follow instructions. My feeling is that if the teacher sends something home to have the parents sign, they are usually expecting a small delay. What if I am at work and cannot sign them right away; or possibly out of town. Aly used the example of “What if you were in Peru?” I am not sure where that came from, but it fit as an example none the less.

On the one hand, I want Avery to be conscientious and follow through, and on the other hand, I want her to understand that as a Mom I am not always going to jump up and handle something on her time table. Yesterday after school, I asked Avery three different times to please hang up her coat. It was lying on the bench just inside the back door. The third time I asked her I had to bite my tongue from saying something sarcastic about doing something when someone asked. I hope that my biting my tongue was a sign that I might be cracking open the door to some better mothering skills. I know at that moment I was quite proud of myself!

I know that by the time I get the hang of parenting a pubescent child, I will be in the throws of high school with the girls and all the information I will have on hand will be out dated, so I am going to have to stay on my toes. I cannot let on to my girls that I am making all of my parenting moves up as I go along. In the mean time, my new personal mom rule is, I will sign it when I am darn good and ready… “Excuse me, could you hand me that pen?”