Birthdays around here happen quite often, what, with six kids and all. Half the year is taken up with buying for birthdays, planning for birthdays, cooking for birthdays, cleaning up for birthdays, cleaning up after birthdays, and crashing after birthdays! My kids start making their ‘what I want for my birthday’ list the day after their birthday!
It’s like a holiday season for us, not to mention most of our birthdays fall during the actual holiday season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. Our budget is so strained from buying presents to celebrate the day of agonizing pain, I mean the day of my angels births that we start asking grandparents to just pay a utility bill for the kids’ birthday instead of buying presents. “Mom, listen, I’m telling you the kids would rather have hot water to shower in than that video game you planned on buying them, I promise!” “Yes, mom he loved the paid stamp on the gas bill this month, he said it was just what he wanted!” No, I’m just kidding, but seriously I do start asking everyone to just give cash!
We just kicked off the season here, with my husband’s birthday, our season runs from October through May, if you count my birthday, but usually by the time we get around to mine, everyone is like…”oh, ya happy birthday, how old are you again?” The other day while partying it up for #3’s birthday, #1 decides that it would be a good time to go over his birthday wish list. His birthday is exactly two weeks after #3’s and only seven weeks before Christmas. His wish list consisted of two items, yes, I was shocked, he only wanted two things! He told me that he wanted an Xbox One or an Alienware laptop. For those of you out there that may not know the price of these fine machines, an Xbox One is around $500.00 and the laptop he wanted runs a mere $1,400.00…only two things, he said, HA! “Ummm….#1, I don’t know about you, but the rest of us would like to eat this month, so I’m going to go ahead and tell you now, pick something else.” He didn’t take the news well…”FINE, IF I CAN’T HAVE ONE OF THOSE THEN I DON’T WANT ANYTHING AT ALL!” So I told him, “Okay, if you want to save up all your birthday money to buy one of the two items then go right on ahead.” And cue #2, who by the way doesn’t have a birthday for another 4 months…”Wait, what?! You mean he’s gonna get all the birthday money and I won’t get anything?!” Whoa, wait a second, since when did I raise ungrateful children?!
One day you’re bragging on Facebook about how selfless your child is…Proud mommy moment, Junior went through his toy box and picked out toys to give to the needy….then you realize the next day all of the toys he picked out were broken and now he is waiting by the door for a ride to Toys R Us…to replenish his stock. You know how before you have kids you always say…”my kid will never act that way!” News flash…now you have kids and they are those kids!!! Welcome to the hood – motherhood that is.
Lessons from the hood~
1. Never say never…
2. My kid will never scream like that in a restaurant…Welcome to the terrible 2’s or 3’s or 4’s…
3. My kid will never dress like that…Yeah right, you’ll learn to choose your battles and sometimes or well most of the time, getting out of the door is way more important than matching shoes or shoes at all!
4. My kid will never talk to me like that…Who knew they were going to come equipped with their very own personalities and opinions?!
5. My kid will never watch Spongebob…Believe me you’ll find yourself singing along with “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea, Spongebob square pants”, when you are desperate to get last night’s dishes washed!
6. My kid will never stay up past 9:00…Well this one may be true, because I know I’m counting down the minutes until 8:00 once the clock hits 7:55 🙂
7. My kid will never sleep in my bed…You become weak when you are sleep deprived, my friend, weak I tell ya!
What did you swear your kid would never do that your kid definitely has done or does?
