She dragged the kids by the arm to the spot where she had been watching the football game and scolded, "Don't you DARE move or touch one another!" She turned her back to watch the tail end of the game and the brother and sister continued to make faces at each other. Sister took a swing, brother stuck out his tongue. The mom whipped back around, pointed her finger at them both and said, "You're about to get taken to the bathroom!" I looked at my mom and said those horrid words, "I will never let my kids behave like that in public...."
Hahahaha. Go ahead and laugh, mamas. 'Cause you already know what I'm about to learn: I'm going to do things as a mom that I promised myself I'd never do. Like... ignore my children's misbehavior for the last 10 minutes of the football game so I don't have to drag them half a mile to the bathroom and straighten them out.
So, I was thinking about all the things that I'd ideally like to do (or not do) with my own kids. In a picture-perfect world, all of these things would happen and my kids would be well-behaved 100% of the time and I'd never get judged for the decisions I make. But, this isn't a picture perfect world so I'm already reminding myself that, sometimes, reality is going to win. It's nice to still have some goals of things we'd like to strive for as parents, but... we all know some of these will go down the drain pretty quickly! :)
In no particular order:
1. Toys will get picked up before bed every night. (I should go ahead and mark this off my list because even Arnold's toys don't get put away nightly... or... ever...)
2. Maleah won't watch TV or play with the iPad/iPhone until she's a year old. And, even then, screen time will be very limited.
3. We won't eat in the car. In fact, Maleah will only eat at the dining table. (We may stick to this one pretty well simply because we have carpet... carpet + food/juice = bad!)
4. We will not punish (read: spank; and let's not even get into that debate...) her in public (we'll take her to a bathroom).
5. Blake and I will not argue in front of her and we certainly won't "vent" to her about one another as she gets older.
6. Maleah will sleep in her own room and we will not stay in the room to help her fall asleep or go through a nightly song and dance to lull her to sleep (I mean, a reasonable nighttime routine is fine... just none of this craziness like you see on Super Nanny!!).
7. We will not use candy/toys/activities as bribery.
8. We will read to her every night.
9. Maleah will learn to entertain herself when we are out in public (particularly when we are with a bunch of adults) - meaning, we won't let her play with the iPhone or iPad to keep her quiet. This also goes for riding in the car.
10. We will NEVER use "Because I said so!".
Now that you've had your 10 minutes of hysterical laughter, I hope you'll drop me a note and fill me in on anything you thought you'd never do as a parent!!
I actually think this is a good list, but I also know that you will adapt once Maleah is here. It's great to have goals, though.
ReplyDeleteI can only speak comprehensively from experience on one of these (since Noah's childhood is obviously far from over), but the goal of no screen time before age 1 is definitely doable. Noah's 19 months now, and we just started letting him watch a couple of shows on Netflix (Yo Gabba Gabba and Sesame Street). He watches them sometimes on the weekends when we are desperate to get stuff done around the house without him underfoot or as a special treat just because. He typically doesn't watch any television during the week.
We've also had a great experience sleepwise with Noah, and I highly recommend the Baby Whisperer books and Happiest Baby on the Block for establishing good sleep habits. He has been sleeping in his own room since a few days after we brought him home, and we have our routine down to an art form at this point. Of course, it could change during the toddler years, but we've always put him down awake, and now he's totally used to it and doesn't need us to rock him to sleep, sing 100 songs or whatever.
Anyway, just know that your list isn't unrealistic. There's nothing on here that made me think, "Haha, just WAIT until she's actually a mom!"