Never say "Never"

It's amazing how much you sound like your own mother when you become a mom. You know you all do that... say the things your mother said to you. Not just the words, but the same voice inflections, the same hand on hip (or finger pointing in your kids face). The same astonishment that they are doing the same things that you did, and you feel the same way that your parents did.

I'm sure that I said that "I will NEVER say that to my kids". "I would NEVER punish them for that". "I would NEVER make my child do that" (remember sitting at the table with those lumpy, cold peas on the plate, thinking about how to send them to those starving children in Africa?).

Well, I received quite the interesting statement from my five year old, Lauryn the other day. She was being her horrible, mouthy self and I looked at her with my hand on my hip in my best "mommy" pose and said, "You know, they say that when you have kids of your own they are going to treat you 100 times worse to you treat your own mother." How brilliant that was, to keep my cool in a heated situation. To not yell back at her. To once again rise above the trap of arguing with her.... I patted myself on the back mentally, for about 15 seconds, until she glared at me and yelled "I'm NEVER having children!!!"

Well, there goes that argument. Now how will she get her paybacks for the torment she puts me through... oh yeah, it's called baby pics coming out on her first date night!

I do know that if her life turns out anything like mine has, she will probably find out that when she says "NEVER" about something that is the one thing that is likely to happen.

Like me saying I would never marry a man who was smaller than me, yeah, that didn't happen (and no matter how much I've fed him in the last 7 years he still doesn't gain). Like me saying I would never move back to the rural community that I grew up in, since there was nothing to do there (I apologize to the community of Lakeview, but I was a youth at the time of that statement). Like me saying I would never make my kids eat their dinner before they had dessert (okay so parents are smarter than kids when it comes to nutrition).

So, while Lauryn is never having children, I have two that need to constantly be reminded how not to do or how to do things. They never think they need to be told anything, but mommy does know best. If I don't I'm much better at getting them to think I do!