Day 348 The Perfect Mom Project

Todays photo is on a playground in Mexico...a good day!

So, intermixed with the loving sister moments that my children have comes along the not so loving day. It started with what I thought was a great plan; the girls were getting up early and going for a bike ride to an area apple orchard that sells donuts. Their plan was to get a yummy donut to eat, and then ride back home. I thought it was a great idea, until Aly decided to "encourage" Avery with words like "Come on, what is taking you so long?" "Why are you wearing that?" "You have an old water bottle on your bike you should throw it out". By the time they finally headed out, I feared I would receive a call that one of them had been pushed into traffic, but I just smiled a stupid grin and waved good-bye. By the time they got back home they were laughing and talking and had decided to head down to our pool to swim together.

 Our pool is nothing big; it is only 15'foot around and about 3 1/2' feet deep. It was great when the kids were younger, but now it is more for them to jump in and cool off. Again, I was happy that they were getting along and spending time together. I went to my happy place in my head where I fantasized about what a good Mom I was and how lucky I was that my kids got along so well. Then reality hit! Only moments after they headed out in stumped Avery announcing that Aly had swore at her. Trust me it was a big time swear word too, but I just stared at Avery, thinking "Oh no you don't!" "You are not going to drag me into this, in five minutes you two will be best buds, and I will still be steaming about all of this!" Avery stormed off yelling something over her shoulder about how I do not care about what Aly does to her. Seriously, where do they come up with this stuff?

 A while later when Aly was brave enough to come into the house, I gave her the look as she walked towards me. My look was a combination of "Do we really have to have this conversation and I am not any happier about this then you are!" I ended up saying "You know what I am going to say don't you?" Aly nodded her head and then replied "You know Mom Avery swears at me and I do not come tattling to you!" Somehow I guess she thought this made her look like the better daughter, but instead, in my head I was wondering what kind of hooligans I was raising!


I am going to have a short conversation today about the use of swear words. I know that the girls are trying to spread their grown up wings and somehow they must think that cussing is part of the territory, but if they start that behavior now, by the time they are officially grown up, they will sound like a couple of truck drivers. I wanted to wait to talk about this with them until the heat of the moment had worn off and neither one would feel like I was picking on anyone in particular. That is the plan, how it actually plays out is another story all together. Remember yesterday, when they were heading out and I was wearing that stupid grin? I was probably in denial, which is where I might end up today too. Is that how you get to be a perfect mom? You just keeping swinging until you head one out of the park? I wonder…