Tag: parenting

Kids will eat just about anything?

I believe that a ‘little dirt never hurt’ and am a strong advocate of the ‘6 second rule’, if something hits the floor I will still give it to Madame, don’t worry I usually pick the cat hairs off first!  I also believe that a lot of allergies today are a result of our hyper-sensitivity to germs.

In the last 2.5 years I’ve ferreted some interesting things out of her mouth; especially, when she went through the stage of exploring the world through her mouth.

To date I have extracted (I don’t have eyes in the back of my head):

  • Loose change
  • Sand
  • Crayons
  • Tea light (metal container and all)
  • Broken Glass
  • Pebbles
  • Fag butts
  • Beads
  • Bottle tops

But the corker has to be…….

A mouse’s stomach, courtesy of our two lovely cats that eat everything and leave the stomach behind!  Blech!

What’s the worst thing you’ve had to pry from the jaws of your little ones?

Come on! Give us some credit!

Photo Credit

I’m not very good at ‘playing with my daughter’.  I’m the kind of parent that shows her how something works and then expect her to get on with it, which is bad I know, I’m just not a natural.  On the other hand after a couple of glasses of wine I’m an absolute hoot and will roll around on the floor doing my best Armadillo impression.

So, when I was at my neighbours the other day and spotted a book of ideas of how to keep a toddler busy, I couldn’t help but nose through it.  But, to be honest, it wound me up more than anything.  Here is exhibit ‘A’:

The Colour Game

Give your child various directions by colour (for example, “put the red bear on the table”, “pick up the blue car”, and “bring me the yellow book”)

FFS, how stupid do they think we are and if you think this is rocket science then I seriously question whether you should procreate???

Discuss

Bad Parenting Club

I’m guessing that this is probably not an original idea but I was inspired by @chickenruby’s recent blog about her accident prone boys and my neighbour’s drama last week when she accidentally locked herself out of the house when her 18 month old was asleep inside.  I need to stress that I don’t think these two are bad parents in any way.

As parents we are not perfect, even though some parents purport that they are, which exacerbates the societal pressures on us parents.  I’m not looking for stories that border on abuse but those that horrified you at the time but you can look back and laugh on them now.

To get the ball rolling I’ll share a few stories.

  • We were at one of Madame’s pals 1st birthday.  I had a couple of glasses of wine but was in no way intoxicated.  We were all sitting out back.  She was in a Handysit on the patio.  To this date I still don’t know exactly what happened but at some point I turned, unfastened her and then I must have been distracted.  The next think I know she is lying face down on the concrete, screaming.  She had the biggest goose egg on her forehead.  I didn’t sleep for days beating myself up over it.
  • At that birthday, a friend of mine shared a bad parenting moment of one of his mates.  He was running with their child on his shoulders, great fun.  But wasn’t thinking and ran into the house through the patio doors and didn’t calculate the clearance!  I’m sure you can work out what happened.
  • Last summer, when I was home in Canada my cousin was telling us about when his daughter was a new born.  They had a menagerie of cats and dogs.  He was in bed, felt what he thought was one of the cats on the end of the bed and kicked it off.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the cat but his daughter.  Eeek!

To join the club, just post/share one of these stories and take the badge.  As usual, this is open to everyone so please feel free to pass it on.

PhotobucketPhoto Credit

However, I would love to hear tales from:

@notefromlapland

@chickenruby

@tattooed_mummy

@vegemitevix

@tiddlyompompom

@mysevenkids

@zooarchaeologis

@muddlingalong

@pennynash

As I’m sure they have goodies!  Do let me know if you do one so I can link back to you.

Is ‘neglect’ a good parenting skill?

Do you ever see or hear something that really ‘clicks’ with your ideals of parenting?  This happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I was watching Desperate Housewives.  If you’re not a fan don’t run away as it’ll still make sense.

Gabby was deemed a bad parent by the neighbourhood mums after one of their kids got hurt in her care when the girls decided to slide down the stairs in a suitcase, which sound like great fun to me!  To get back in the good books she threw a lavish birthday party for her daughter involving a monkey and a clown.  Unfortunately, the monkey went berserk and resulted in a tranquilizer gun and the clown being taken away on a stretcher.

That night, like we all do, she was beating herself up about being a bad mum and this is the conversation she had with her husband, Carlos.

Carlos: Stop beating yourself up, it wasn’t that bad!

Gabby: Carlos, the monkey almost killed the clown, that’s the definition of a bad children’s party!

Gabby: Ana’s right I am a terrible mum.

Carlos: Look, I am no expert on raising children.  All I know is when all the other children ran screaming to their mums, Juanita jumped into the bouncy castle and zipped it up and her sister played dead.  Those girls are smart…which they wouldn’t be if you’d been hovering all over them their whole lives.  They’ve learned to be independent and resourceful and that is thanks to your negligence.

I don’t think I need to add anything as I think this says it all! :-)