Thursday, May 31, 2012

Life Would Be So Much Easier if I Was A Better Parent

What I Remembered to Do:


*Leave work in time to prepare food for the pitch-in

*Pack a meal for Stow including his sippy cup, bib, and spoon

*Change the camera battery before putting it into the bag

*Have Pink P and Sky write thank you cards for their teachers since tomorrow is the last day of school

*Bring the new epipen since the old one has expired

*Listen to and respond to all the answering machine messages before leaving the house

*Change Stow's diaper

*Make sure everyone was dressed and ready to leave the house on time

*Take the stroller

*Leave the house early enough so we could park close enough so Ren wouldn't have to walk so far

*Remind Pink P and Sky of the rules for eating out and behaving in crowds


What I Failed to Do:

*Anticipate the sensory overstimulation caused by twenty 3-5 year olds and their families eating, playing, singing, and running within a fairly narrow space

*Take preventative/preparatory steps like muscle compression, therapeutic listening or brushing to help Sky cope

*Realize that Sky was running around and being disruptive due, in large part, to the visual and aural chaos around him

*Employ any of the centering measures Sky has acquired over the last 16 months months of occupational therapy

*Take one step back and realize that my constant frustration and reliance on verbal warnings for him invariably made things worse

*Express my frustration to Sky in a constructive manner

*Relax enough to enjoy even one second of Pink P's preschool picnic and show



Ugh! I'm getting kind of tired of my epic mom fails.

3 comments:

Sandra Timmerman said...

Today my kids came back after 1 week vacation at my parents( our summer holiday starts 21 July ) and Gerben was sooo tired that he collapsed during dinner. Un fortunatly "opa and oma" don't use the techniques to avoid sensory overload... But for us a week "off" was long overdue. 7 more weeks of normal school rythm and then chaos.. We don't fail nor do the kids. The world around us is just not able to cope :-)
sandra

Mom on the Edge said...

I just get frustrated w how easily I forget to tweak my expectations and just go with the flow!

Sandra Timmerman said...

Yes I know that all to well.Patience is the key then but oh so difficult. Gerben is now ok again and has had enough rest. So onwards we go. Reading your blog though gives me faith that what we do and go trough, is as it is and not due to being a 'bad' parent.