Before my daughter arrived, I swore I would never…

Say no to reading a book.

I’m a librarian and a mama to a toddler; I took whole classes on children’s literature and picture books!  So you’d think of all the things for me to unequivocally say yes to, it’d be reading more books.  But even librarians have their limits — and sometimes it means after the twentieth book, we want to do something else for a while.

Provide an alternative to what’s for dinner.

What’s been cooked is what’s for dinner, that was going to be my motto.  Hah!  Some battles are worth fighting and some are categorically not.  In our family’s case, the Battle of the Spaghetti Squash was not worth the agony.  Life is too short to make one little squash a hill to die on.

Say yes to dessert even if a plate hasn’t been cleaned.

My child front-loads her day.  She has two healthy breakfasts with enough food to satisfy four hobbits.  If, by the time she gets to dinner, she’s not finishing it, yet sweetly asks for a scoop of ice cream…okay.  Not every night!  But sometimes, yes.  Okay.  (I am, possibly, a bigger pushover than I thought I was.)

Have the TV on if nobody is actively watching.

I haaaaaaate when there’s a TV on and nobody is watching it.  TV as background noise is my sore spot.  So imagine my chagrin the other day when I was wrangling a whiny toddler up the stairs while the dogs barked outside wanting to be let in and somehow the TV ended up playing Winnie the Pooh to nobody for quite a while.

Cry to a Phil Collins song.

LOOK HERE NOW.  No laughing.  HEY.  Why don’t you try listening to You’ll Be In My Heart when it comes onto the Pandora station and not get some dust in your eye.

Bribe my kid with candy.

Hey hi potty training, thanks for making me walk this one back.  I’m pretty sure my child is learning to pee in the potty through Pavlovian M&M methods and that is just fine with me.

Be That Frazzled Mom pulling dumb kid stuff from her purse at embarrassing moments.

Also on the potty training note, I’d like to state for the record that pulling a pair of tiny Peppa Pig undies out of my purse while in the hip comic shop was not my most embarrassing moment on earth, but it ranks up there.  You try to be cool and see what happens.

Eat mac-n-cheese multiple times in one week.

We’ve all been there, right?

Have two separate meals instead of one joyful family meal.

When my daughter was a baby my husband and I would have separate meals: the first meal with the baby, and then after she went to bed, a second meal (usually eaten groggily in front of our favorite show).  She got bigger, but it letting go and consolidating our two meals into one was surprisingly difficult.  Not because it was technically challenging; we both just craved the downtime of a leisurely meal that didn’t involve tipped cups, tears, and smashed food.  We really enjoy our merged meals now, but I felt pretty ashamed for hanging onto the separate ones as long as we did!

Be lured back in by bedtime shenanigans and pleas for more water and more books and another kiss please.

Okay, this one I think we can all cut ourselves some slack on.  If anything, it just proves I’m human, right?

So here’s to us, fallible human mamas who say things that don’t always pan out.  Here’s to trying for the best, and accepting when we don’t meet our own expectations every time.  And here’s to going in after lights-out for one more kiss.