At one point in time, my blogs were poignant. My writing was thought out, and meant something. But I'm starting to realize that when I sit down to write these, I'm tired and have usually had nothing but a mundane day filled with nothing anyone particularly wants to hear about. So I'm writing my blog in the morning. When I haven't had time for anything to happen in the first place.
I saw something this morning that has me torn. On one hand, it's a blaring example of what's wrong with America. On the other hand, I hope I'm as cool a parent. I think it proves moderation and occasional self-control are incredibly important.
When I woke up this morning, I wanted glazed donuts and a crappy latte, so I headed off to Dunkin' Donuts. Now, I don't know how everyone's Dunkin' is, but ours has a Baskin Robbins in it. While I stood at the counter waiting for my overhot, slightly burned latte the guy had to make with one hand while he held the instructions in the other, I noticed a little boy at the Baskin Robbins counter with crumpled dollars his parents had given him, ordering ice cream at 9:30 in the morning. And in that moment, I wanted to think I would be the mom who said, "Screw it. Ice cream for breakfast!"
And then I saw his parents, sitting with a week's worth of food on their little table, rear ends hanging over the chairs, necks rolling out of the collars of their shirts. And I had second thoughts about ice cream for breakfast. Especially when I saw that the kid had ordered a bigger ice cream than even my super calorie burning husband can put away on a hungry night. Self-control, people, and child-control.
Today's lesson: So what does this mean? It means we can splurge. We can go out and get what is quite possibly the worst breakfast ever on Saturday morning, drink ourselves under the table Saturday night, eat a Thanksgiving sized meal on Sunday afternoon, and as long as we can fit in our chairs on Monday morning, we should be alright. It means we can give our kids ice cream for breakfast, as long as we don't do it everyday.
2 comments:
There is power in the word "no" that far too many parents have rarely exercised. My kids would argue that I exercise that power too often and say "no" too much. They just appreciate the "yes" more when they finally hear it.
Good thing cheese is low cal :-)
I love how my old fence is now your blog heading
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