Basic Mom Week in Review - 10/11/15

5 Things That Actually Happened This Week and the Lessons I Learned

1. I turned the radio on so my toddler and I could to listen to it while we were playing. After about three minutes, my toddler ran to her sister's bedroom. I heard her rummaging around a bit before running back to the living room, where she held Taylor's Swift's 1989 album out to me.

Lesson: The radio doesn't play enough Taylor Swift for my toddler. (And that's fine by me.)

2. While I was bathing my toddler, my husband peaked in and said jokingly, "You should wash Mommy's feet!" (because basic mom things result in dirty feet). She then filled her rinsing cup with water and dumped it on my legs.

Lesson: If the requested action has a negative impact on me, my toddler will act in extraordinarily uncharacteristic fashion and do what she is told.

3. I made some pasta, and it was seriously probably the best thing I have ever made (and I'm not too shy to say that I'm a pretty decent cook). I was quite proud of it, and expressed that to my husband by saying something like, "This is a good meal - it's, like, restaurant-quality," to which he replied, "Yeah, it's definitely better than anything you'd get at, like, Olive Garden."

Lesson: *Sigh* Next time I'll add my tears.

4. While volunteering at my daughter's school, I was quizzing a student on some sight words. He was struggling, so I told him it was okay to just tell me if he didn't know a word. He proceeded to go down the list saying, "no . . . no . . no," as I pointed to words and asked if he knew them, though once in a while he would say the correct word instead of "no." Well then we got to the word "No" and things got real confusing.

I pointed to the word "No."

He said, "No."

I paused.

He paused.

I said, "'No,' as in you don't know that word or . . . ?"

The teacher who was helping a student across the hall chuckled at my situation.

He said, "No."

I paused again.

I tried asking again, "So, 'no,' you don't know the word?"

Finally, mercifully, he said, "N-O means 'No,'" and that was good enough for me.

Lesson: That's why they pay teachers the big bucks. Wait? They don't? Well, they really, really should.

5. I took my toddler with me to buy a watch for my husband's upcoming 30th birthday. The store didn't have the watch with the blue face that he expressed interest in, so I ended up picking out a different one. When we got home, I hid the watch in a drawer in my toddler's dresser and told her not to tell Daddy. At dinner that night, while we were talking about our days, my toddler started yelling "Blue face! Blue face!" and ran back to her room. Long story short, my husband got his birthday present a month early.