Are You My Mother?
August 29, 2007 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
Are You My Mother?You know that Dr. Seuss book where the baby is asking all the wild animals Are You My Mother?
Zack could look back and forth and see the battle yesterday at Ainsley’s Meet The Teacher Meeting. The power struggle between my daughter and I, laying claim over mothering Zack was palpable.
Zack would not keep his yappy, baby-demanding, mouth shut during the teacher’s first lecture about the rules. Ainsley kept loudly asking to hold him and fighting with him over crayons, arguing with me about every answer. All the other children behaved beautifully, quietly, respectfully.
Normally, my children are afraid to misbehave in public, but today both were their worst selves in front of the whole class. And I was my worst self. All three of us had to go out in the hall to stop disrupting the teacher.
This is not how I pictured our Kindergarten debut.
Oh, I have been there. Last Sunday I took D-Mac (18 mo.) to church by myself. He was the only baby at that service, and he was in rare form. He discovered the echo in the room during the long, quiet prayer time. He wanted to run back and forth on the pew. He tried to escape and run down the aisle several times.
I was beside myself, but the rector came to me after the service and said how glad she was to see us there, and not to worry about any noise he made. It made me feel better and realize she’s probably seen all this before.
I’m sure most of the parents in Ainsley’s kindergarten class can sympathize – they were probably just glad it wasn’t their kids, that time. But there will be other times when your kids are the perfect angels and someone else is running riot.
I don’t know if this helps, but I read in an article recently that however much attention you think is on you is really only about 50% of what you think. In other words, we overestimate how much people are even noticing us.
Man, my kids always show their colorful side at the worst possible moment. Don’t sweat it. Kindy will be fine I’m sure.
I know, I know, I know. It happens to everyone. I’m sure everyone felt empathetic towards me.