A while ago I thought it would be a great idea to enrol Busy into a Kindy gym class after her swimming lessons on Tuesday mornings. ( I can hear those more experienced mums groaning already at my clearly amateur parenting skills) The reason for doing them straight after the other is that it is a 60km+ round trip to the largest nearby town where both lessons are, and also where I work, so to try to lesson the trips I thought I would do them on the same day. To try to burn less fossil fuels. To try to make my life easier. A few people said " wow that is a lot" but I reasoned she runs around at the park for longer than both lessons put together and if she is tired then that is Ok we can just hang at home for the rest of the day.
What I didn't factor in was the other type of tired 3 and a half year olds experience. Listening- to- instruction- fatigue. For the now fourth week in a row she has lost it (as in screaming) about 10 minutes before the end. This week she was inconsolable. I realised ( after having forked out the cash for the whole term) that it is all just too much.
So we farewelled Kindy gym in the car today and we both agreed it was too much and after swimming next week would just go home and read some books.
I don't know what I was thinking and now feel really bad that I didn't realise sooner she was loosing it because she was tired not mucking up...
Racked. With. Guilt.
So today I am asking:
What Dumb Mum Thing have you done lately or ever?
poor little Busy!
ReplyDeleteI do things like that too, make Aidan walk everywhere so we don't use the car & then he gets soooo tired and loses it just like that.
I have done a few dumb things in my 4.5 yrs..let me get back to you on that:)
♥
Oh gee, sometimes I forget to FEED my kids...we have swimming lessons at 11.45am once a week. Well, I give them a snack before, meaning to give them more lunch type stuff once we get home. Well, they get out of the pool, I give them the quick snack I brought along, then home we go. About 2-3pm, they've both lost it..2 yrs and 5 yrs, then I realise I forgot to give them lunch. And the really need it after a two hr swim session. Duh...
ReplyDeleteDumb things? Why yes. Only just this morning, I attempted to take two preschoolers to the supermarket. I did so knowing full well it never works.
ReplyDeleteI can only apologise to anyone mown down by two feral boys at an Aldi store this morning.
Don't feel so bad, you had the best of intentions. I've always been the worst at saying yes to family events, dinners you name it (like putting a sick child in the car & traveling 2hrs only to have them throw up on the freeway). The kids end up suffering in the end being overindulged by grandparents, feeling physically sick from all the crap they've been fed, the late nights & the travel involved. I'm getting better at saying no these days & putting our little family first, and copping all the disapproving talk about our overly routined lives..I gather if they are so desperate to see us they might travel down our way occasionally.(Boy, that sounds bitter, it's not meant to..really)
ReplyDeletejust one? gee whizz.
ReplyDeletei could shut down the interweb if i recorded every dumb mummy thing i have done.
one of the first things i did was decide that i would walk to my first post-birth obstetrician apptment. yes, crazy. 5 weeks after i'd had a c-section i decided to take a leisurely 12km round trip into the city with a newborn baby...
jen
Don't feel bad. We've all been there and what you did made a lot of sense. You might have got away with it if swimming wasn't involved. Swimming always seems to tire my two out beyond all belief. Hmm, stupid parenting? Forgetting to lower the cot base to a better height before the youngest child climbed out and landed on her head? Giving in to the 6 year old and letting her have the slip-on high fashion black shoes for school wear and then dealing with the sprained ankle and blisters afterwards? Lots more where they came from!
ReplyDeleteI was a truely Dumb Mum on the weekend - went to swimming and forgot to pack a towel and then we went into the city for a bookstore event and forgot my wallet. Never, ever leave the house in a rush! Fortunately I as able to borrow a towel from a friend and I was meeting my hubby in town after the bookstore so it worked out OK in the end.
ReplyDeleteI do dumb mum stuff ALL THE TIME!!!
ReplyDeleteLike .... when my kids are trying hard to help with the cleaning up and I yell at them anyway because they aren't doing it "right" (and because I'm tired and grumpy and I'm taking it out on them).
Like ... when the tooth fairy forgot to attend to my son's tooth under his pillow last week.
Like .... when I forgot to pick up my daughter from a play-date until after the friend had already given her DINNER!!
Do I need to go on?
We all make mistakes. That's how we learn to be better parents. (At least that's what I keep telling myself)
Started my 6-month-old baby on pears before trying out stuff like squash, zucchini, rice cereal and carrot. Now I have to mix the mushy vegies with pears or apples to get him to eat enough. It's been less than a month and I now have visions of him only eating lollies and a pitched battle every night at the dinner table...
ReplyDeleteno kids yet, but after reading all these comments I'm feeling a little bit better about the whole idea knowing I won't be the only one who makes mistakes. Thank goodness cause i know I'll make them. I can barely take care of myself!
ReplyDeleteI am ALWAYS doing dumb things. My most guilty one is thinking the Doctor was mucking up every night when going to bed. I put up with it for 2 or 3 nights before thinking - maybe he's sick. We trotted off to the real doctor and sure enough he had a really bad ear infection AND tonsillitis. I felt SO so bad. I still do.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad, it's a simple and easily solved mistake. x
Don't feel guilty! Just because we try something that doesn't work out doesn't mean that it was wrong to try.
ReplyDeleteDoes the kindy gym have a session on a different day that you could transfer to?
Oh so many of those moments. I think that it is those same kidlets start to look like such big people that it is easy to forget that they are only 3. I know I get caught thinking that Poppy should be able to handle so much more than she can.
ReplyDeleteI also find it hard with Caleb to not molly coddle and not give him too much.
Well, at least you made lots of us laugh with your self-deprecating post. I reckon some of the over-scheduling stuff is something we have to figure out by trial and error with our own particular offspring - so that's what you've done. Trial, error!
ReplyDeleteI am constantly doing dumb stuff. Usually, violent stuff, like dropping my kids on their heads. Yesterday, I jammed W's finger in a cupboard door so badly it bled. It was truly awful. I just kept pushing the door, thinking 'why is this not closing...?' He meanwhile was speechless with pain... oh, the guilt!!!
OK so the labelling is clearly different on paw-paw ointment (for dry-breathe-through-my-mouth-lips) and vicks vapour rub, so I wonder how i ended up with a menthol/euco breathing lip monster last night after bath - gee thanks mum... Required some soothing before he went to bed....
ReplyDeleteOh and today I thought that my almost 3yo would have no trouble filling up seedling containers with a broken spade, oh and i had no patience for 'but my spade is broken'... GET UP AND GET A SPOON!!
As many times as I think 'bad dumb mum' i just keep on doing it again!
There is not a day that passes by where I don't make a dumb parenting decision... I tell myself that it is how I bounce back that counts and I tell the kids that I am still just learning so they need to be patient with me like I try to be when they're learning new stuff too.
ReplyDelete