Spencer Unlimited

Okay first off if you haven’t seen the movie Bad Mom staring my girl crush Mila Kunis you need to do it, trust me! I’ve watched this movie going on 5 times now and I will probably watch it another again before 2016 is over. Crush crushes aside this movie made me feel good about being a bad mom. 

Basically there are so many rules and expectation for us moms now that it’s impossible to keep up or do it all. Some how we aresuppose to vaccinate our kids but not vaccinate them, feed them organic all natural food but allow them to have cookies and candy whenever they want, discipline our kids but don’t discipline them TOO much aka don’t spank them or slap their hand in public or you’ll be turned in, breastfeed them but not in public and if you do give a bottle heavens forbid it’s formula because clearly you don’t care about your kid if you’re feeding it… please tell me you getting my sarcasm here.

Needless to say it’s really easy to be classified as a bad mom these days and I was guilty of worrying about it. I’m a breastfeeding mom who disciplines our kids, I cook mostly organic food for our kids but I also order in…a lot and you best believe I buy pre-made cookie dough and have candy in my house because mama needs sugar. My house is always half cleaned, my “work clothes” are whatever I fell asleep in the night before and some how I do laundry daily but someone’s favorite shorts or shirt never make it in a load. 

Today I was a bad mom because I made our 5 year old throw away his stickers he had just gotten two days ago as a gift. Yep, I’m such a b*tch or at least I’m sure he thought that, except I like to believe he’s fool ???(remove) language isn’t that advanced and I was more of a doo doo head. Lets back pedal a little on why we ended up with stickers in the trash and tears before 9 am. Along with the stickers the boys got race cars to share and we’re still working on sharing somedays in this house. I usually start with a warning when I see the oldest take both cars away and try and sneak off, it’s something like “Buddy…where are you going?” followed by “nowhere…” “why’d you take your brothers car away?” “He gave it to me.” Ugh toddler lies. Even though I just watched him walk over and take the car away from his brother I calmly explain that it didn’t look like his little brother gave it to him and that he needs to share. Followed by my new go to “if your brother took away all your toys how will you feel?” Of course this works for a few minutes but soon it happens again, plus Ashton’s a  (remove) crying is usually a good sounding alarm that someone took his toy. By his third warning Jordan is sent to sit in his room on his chair and think about why he feels he needs all the toys and doesn’t want to share. This honestly works better than I thought it would however not always.

Now lets get to the stickers, while I cooked breakfast and fed Ashton his pureed carrots before nap time I asked Jordan to play in his room so that I could see him while I cooked and so he’d stay away from the hot stove. He asked to play with his new coloring book and stickers-God I hate STICKERS!- so we did a refresh of sticker rules; Do not stick them on anything or anyone without asking. Stick the stickers in the sticker book and no where else. 

Alas I put Ashton down for his nap and go to get Jordan for breakfast and my heart broke. I had to pull out bad mom me before 9 amalready? Damn…. Stickers cover him and his table and chair. I ask what the rules are with stickers and I can see it in his eyes he is in trouble. So following along with the rules he then had to take each sticker off his chair, table and self and throw them all away. Of course there was tears and the dread shaky voice of ‘why?’ and the answer is always changing but comes down to this. I want to raise kids that respect the things they own, that know the value of materialistic things and don’t take them for granted. My parents did this with me and I think that is one reason why I take so much pride in the little amount of stuff we have. We are in no means rich, we classify more with the poor, paycheck to paycheck class so buying tons of toys for our kids isn’t realistic, plus they don’t need that many toys. 

Yesterday I was a bad mom because I slapped Ashton’s hand to teach him ‘No’ means don’t touch. Yes it breaks my mom heart when after the third slap he cries out of frustration but on the flip side I don’t want to have to get rid of everything in our house. I also don’t want him trying to eat Christmas lights or pine cones…. BUT as much as it breaks my heart to do all of this guess what, I say No and Ashton stops now, admittedly he still grabs it after he looks at me and laughs but we’re getting there. Jordan later asked to play with a different sticker book and said ‘I won’t put them on the table or chair only my book’.