If that is not the understatement of the millennium, then I do not know what is! On top of that, it has been reiterated so many times that you have probably stopped reading at this point. Or you didn’t even click on it, thinking “There she goes with one of her original thoughts!” Wink, wink!
I am not talking about the bouts of unexplained crying, the dirty, messy diapers, the temper tantrums in the middle of a parking lot, the filching of candy bars that are within reach from the baby carriage as mommy paid for the grocery, and making mommy trudge all the way back to the store from the parking lot with a gooey, chocolaty baby to pay for the stolen Toblerone, the terrible two’s, three’s…sevens…twelves….! Not talking about explaining difficult phenomenons like God, death, angels, Santa Claus, tooth fairy, nail fairy. Yup, in our family, we TRIED to believe in nail fairy and extract money out of her when accidentally a nail fell off after the finger was caught in a door. Nail fairy didn’t pay a visit, though. Not talking about raising your eyebrows sky-high and pointing to your watch when your daughter talks on the phone for more than half an hour! None of that old stuff! Much has been said on that already.
I am talking about how I can’t be naughty when I want to be. Even when the kids aren’t around, I feel like a hypocrite if I do something that I tell them not to do. I can’t seem to turn off my over worked conscience! My mother had no such qualms. Her mantra to me was ‘Do as I say, don’t do what I do!’ Wish I had adopted that dictum instead of ‘Practice what you preach!’ Reading way too many parenting books will do that to you!
Please be under no false impression that I lead my life perfectly to set an example. Heck no! But I do stop myself from using words like ‘hate’, ‘stupid’, ‘shut up’ ‘dumb’ and others that are no-no in the house! I thank the telemarketer for calling “No, I am not interested in your scheme but thank you sooo much for calling!” instead of slamming the phone down because we are already late for some practice or other. I can’t curse if I want to (good thing I don’t want to curse often), ‘What an idiot’ being my limit! The other predicament is I can’t eat chocolates and other desserts in peace. My guilty conscience or mommy conscience stops me from pilfering and devouring a whole chocolate bar. If I manage to quieten my conscience and open the refrigerator with the intention of stealing, I encounter a bag of candies with this written on it: Mom, keep out! Quite unwillingly, I make a fair share of a chocolate bar. Couple of days ago, I felt extremely low energy. I had a lot of errands to run, grocery shopping being one of them. I decided to treat myself to a delectable chocolate mousse cake as a ‘pick me up’ for lunch. Decadent, I know. I came home feeling very naughty and indulgent. But then I couldn’t eat it. I simply couldn’t! I remembered two faces who absolutely loved dessert. I kept it in the corner of the kitchen eyeing it and ‘cursing’ myself for not buying more of those so I could have one.
Finally, I divided the cake to my two children for after school snack when they came home. Dessert is a very special treat in our house. The little faces lit up “Wowza! What got into mom today? How did we get so lucky? Dessert for snack? And we didn’t have to do a thing to earn it????”
As I said, being a mom ain’t easy, but then again, nobody said it would be! I teach them to behave well and they keep their eyes glued on me so I have to toe the line, most of the times. I guess we help each other ‘grow’!
Mamas around the world, lets raise a glass to the universal mommy hood. Here’s to TRYING our level best to raise some worthy citizens of the world and TRYING to be better humans ourselves, in the process.
There are, fortunately, books on parenting. Really helpful ones which tell us we are not doing this alone. There are others who are trying their very best. Here are some to look at:
whatmamathinks 
The gift of Mama!
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