tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-344105932008-02-19T10:20:01.512-08:00DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1165901270697489422006-12-11T21:16:00.000-08:002006-12-11T21:27:50.716-08:00

So, wanting to be a good, dutiful parent rearing a sweet and culturally literate child, in honor of the season I just read my nine-year-old son "The Gift of the Magi," by O. Henry. We got to the end of the story, and my voice cracked just a little on those last sentences about how the idiots who sold their best stuff to buy presents for each other were wiser than the wise men who brought

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1165738584913356212006-12-10T00:16:00.000-08:002006-12-10T22:48:45.526-08:00

At this time of year, I just can't stop quoting a Calvin and Hobbes comic to my son (who also loves C & H, naturally). It's the one where Calvin asks his dad about when they'll be putting the Christmas tree up and the dad starts messing with his head -- saying that they'll put it in the garage or something. What sticks in my head is when the dad adds, "And that way if you get a present…"

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1165448302767100562006-12-06T15:36:00.000-08:002006-12-06T15:39:19.650-08:00

During the election last November my youngest child was especially interested in the increased cigarette tax. We talked a lot about diseases caused by smoking and how they're treated. Whenever we were out and he saw someone smoking he'd say (sometimes quite loudly), "That person is going to have to pay a lot of money for their cigarettes, and the goverment will give it to hospitals to take care

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1165118827596104792006-12-02T19:58:00.000-08:002006-12-03T23:24:59.106-08:00

I just gave two children a stern, solemn lecture on the dangers of salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs that go into the chocolate-chip cookie batter, selflessly protecting them from licking the bowl or beaters of the batch we'd just mixed up. Then, as soon as they were safely out of the room and down the hall, I chomped a generous spoonful of the dough. In fact, I got my secret stash of

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1165089180502247242006-12-02T11:45:00.000-08:002006-12-02T11:53:00.513-08:00

It had been a week since my last big clean. It was time to buckle down to doing the dusting, vaccuuming, and scrubbing our house obviously needed. Or was it? I looked around. There was my son, wistfully looking up at me, holding a board game in his hand. And there was my husband, working at home with a flexible schedule that easily included some of the quality time with his family that had

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1164783088673268782006-11-28T22:43:00.000-08:002006-11-28T22:51:28.680-08:00

One night my sons came home from having dinner out with Daddy -- a treat! -- and could hardly wait to tell me the news. "Mommy! Guess what? Daddy took us to a bar!" After I picked myself up off the floor, my husband sheepishly explained. He had taken them out to eat at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant, not realizing that the place didn't take credit cards. Of course they didn't take checks,

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1164528029087203962006-11-25T23:56:00.000-08:002006-11-26T00:02:20.143-08:00

So my daughter came home tonight from her public-schooled neighbor's house. She casually flipped me the bird and said, "This isn't a 'bad word', is it, mom? Because my friend said it is -- that can't be right!" I explained to her that it is a very vulgar gesture, one that only the lowest of low-lifes use...people who don't know how to use words to express themselves with class and respect.

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162618660335186292006-11-03T21:30:00.000-08:002006-11-03T21:37:40.343-08:00

I read about a brilliant Real Bad Mommy in some humor column years ago -- can't remember where. This mom had a couple of kids who were too young to keep track of time in terms of the date and the day of the week and all that, so whenever the kids wanted to do something that the mom didn't want them to, she wouldn't tell them no or argue with them. Instead, she'd say that they could do it on

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162498479135243852006-11-02T12:09:00.000-08:002006-11-02T12:14:39.143-08:00

Before he was old enough to keep track of what he had, I shamelessly raided my son's Halloween trick-or-treat stash. At least I wasn't as bad as another mom I know. She took her baby out trick-or-treating when the kid wasn't even a year old and couldn't eat any of her haul. The mom drove half an hour to the rich section of a town she didn't even live in so she'd get the really good candy.

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162449270795751072006-11-01T22:32:00.000-08:002006-11-01T22:34:30.803-08:00

A woman told me that she was visiting Disneyland with her six-year-old son for the first time. He had never been on a rollercoaster before, so she wanted to try him out on something easy to see how he liked it. The height requirement for the Matterhorn was low, so she assumed that the ride was okay for him. Well, they got on the ride, and as soon as they got to a dark point her son started

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162336722634630032006-10-31T15:15:00.000-08:002006-10-31T15:18:42.643-08:00

Today is October 31 -- Halloween. I have a five year old, an almost four year old and a 2.5 year old (all homeschooled). They do not know today is Halloween because I do not want to hear the moaning and crying to get dressed every five minutes. I'll tell them when it gets dark. How many years do you think I'll be able to get away with this????

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162274529277343982006-10-30T21:53:00.000-08:002006-10-30T22:28:16.743-08:00

Every year, I get the holiday boxes out a little closer to the actual date of the holiday. We celebrate holidays other people barely notice. I have a whole box just for St. Patrick's Day. What can I say? I was very energetic, once upon a time. I used to be so big on Halloween, it was hard to wait until it was technically October to get all the decorations and storybooks and doodads out.

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162066246405903092006-10-28T13:01:00.000-07:002006-10-28T13:10:46.413-07:00

I never used the television as a babysitter. But once when my son was a baby, I was holding him in my lap and he turned and started gnawing on his bassinet. It was padded on the edge, and I guess the firmness underneath the quilting felt good on his gums. I was so relieved at just being able to sit down, I read for twenty minutes before I thought about the fact that the bassinet had been a

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1162010512672553762006-10-27T21:32:00.000-07:002006-10-27T21:41:52.686-07:00

When the kids want to take a bubble bath, I just squirt a little dish soap into the tub. Hey, it's bubbles, right?

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161926173324552042006-10-26T22:06:00.000-07:002006-10-26T22:16:13.343-07:00

My son was not quite two years old, and I was still getting the hang of mothering, cleaning, and prioritizing. One morning, he was following me around with a story book in his hands. "Read? Read?" he asked. "Okay, honey," I said. "Let me just make the bed." He waited quite patiently. As soon as he noticed I was done, he waved the book again and repeated, "Read? Read?" "Sure, sweetheart," I

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161836992376329292006-10-25T21:22:00.000-07:002006-10-25T21:36:56.680-07:00

I win the "real bad mommy" prize.My daughter was very scared of going downstairs alone. Her bedroom is down there, so often, in order for her to retrieve a toy or something else she needed, she'd ask me to stand at the top of the stairs and watch her go down. If I'd talk to her while she was down there, she'd wait until she got back upstairs to answer, because "they will hear me if I talk when

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161661965465616692006-10-23T20:49:00.000-07:002006-10-23T20:52:45.473-07:00

My oldest daughter was five months old. She was trying so hard to roll from her back to her front. Trying so very hard. So naturally I decided if I helped her, it would "show" her what needed to be done to succeed. I took her hand and pulled her over. Rather than being delighted she proceeded to cry hysterically - the pain cry. I picked her up and noticed her arm was limp and did not "work." I

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161491816016902492006-10-21T21:26:00.000-07:002006-10-21T21:36:56.023-07:00

Okay, this is the Baddest of the Bad Herself. I promise not to get mushy like this ever again; but here's a story our ninety-four-year-old neighbor's grand-daughter told us about him that I have to share: "My grandpa -- okay, we always called him Bapa, so that's what I'm going to call him now. Bapa was always looking out for me. He always wanted me to be happy. "One day, we were all out on a

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161414814921266092006-10-21T00:07:00.000-07:002006-10-21T00:16:01.500-07:00

This picture was taken on a very rainy day on a recent camping trip. We were desperate to find things to do that didn’t involve being stuck in the tent with a three and a five year old. We were lingering over lunch to pass the time and my husband and I even indulged in the unforgivable sin of a daytime beer. The kids were restless, but being the selfish bad mommy that I am, I wasn’t ready to

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161232250684951752006-10-18T21:24:00.000-07:002006-10-18T21:30:50.693-07:00

This is a two-parter Bad Mommy story. The other day my five-year-old daughter put a garbage bag over her head. Bad Mommy Moment #1: I actually let my kids play with plastic bags; I was standing right next to her and she put it over her head. She announced, "Hey, I can put eye holes in this and be a ghost for Halloween!" My first thought? GREAT IDEA! Bad Mommy Moment #2: The thought of

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161145484587211752006-10-17T21:01:00.000-07:002006-10-17T21:24:44.596-07:00

My worst Bad Mommy moment: My son was extremely clingy as a baby. We're talking The Human Leech. This wasn't so bad during the day, once I got accustomed to just leaving him in the sling every loving minute; but at night I was still figuring out how to make it work. Sometimes he was in a bassinet right next to my side of the bed. A lot of the time, he was in bed with me, because I was just

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1161057473212260912006-10-16T20:53:00.000-07:002006-10-16T23:35:56.420-07:00

Group bad mommy moment: A bunch of us were at the park with our kids. They were all playing, and we were all talking. One of the moms broke open a brand-new package of chocolate sandwich cookies -- for us, since the kids were off doing their own thing. So we're standing around partying -- eating cookies, talking. All we needed was a bottle of wine to make the day complete. Just then, the

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1160945205947334592006-10-15T13:41:00.000-07:002006-10-15T13:46:45.946-07:00

In order to keep this site the fun place I want it to be, I update it almost every day. If you're a math major, you've already figured out that in order to do that, I need approximately 365 new Bad Mommies stories a year. If I don't get them from my readers, I have to descend to my own Hall of Shame and dredge something up. It's true that I'm the Baddest of the Real Bad Mommies, but sooner or

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1160944395100210942006-10-15T13:28:00.000-07:002006-10-15T13:33:15.106-07:00

It was the end of a four-day camping trip with the kids, and we were all exhausted. We'd packed up all the gear, and were relaxing on the beach. The kids were off playing. The only problem was, they wanted us to look at everything. Come see this seahorse, come see this shell. After a while, we'd just had it. We didn't want to get up and look at one more thing. Finally, one of the kids

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410593.post-1160804664579568832006-10-13T22:40:00.000-07:002006-10-13T22:44:24.586-07:00

When my daughter was ten years old, she asked me if she could shave her legs. I was ten when I started shaving, but I had black hair on my legs. My daughter inherited her father's coloring and is blessed with blond hair on her legs and arms, so I said no. I really did not see a reason for her to shave her legs and I told her I thought she was too young. Of course, she was incensed. There was a

DMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06820905940304729280noreply@blogger.com