Sometimes I'm a bad mom

Andrew's cousin Bethany tagged me to do quirks again, but I just did that tag, so I thought I'd make a list of all the "bad mom" things I've done in the past 24 hours.

• I put Rachel in her room to play by herself while I took a (much-needed) nap yesterday.
• When I woke up we ate a package of cookies together.
• Then I made her unload the washing machine for me while I did the dishes--she did a good job and actually ended up unloading it about three times before I finished the dishes because she kept putting the clothes back in and taking them out again.
  
• I accidentally let her stay up until 10:30 PM last night because I read the clock wrong and thought it was an hour earlier than it was.
• I let her sleep in until 10 o'clock this morning--I slept in, and Andrew slept in, too.
  
• We had cake for breakfast.
• I made her put the cans (that she'd scattered all around the kitchen floor) away while I did last night's dishes.
• I wouldn't let her open the washing machine because it was full of the Schilling's clothes, not ours--she threw a fit.
• I didn't comfort her because it was just a temper tantrum--I said she wasn't hurt so she hit her own head to try to make me feel sorry for her; I said that was a stupid thing to do and still didn't pick her up.
  
• I took her outside on the balcony to hang up our wet clothes (that had been sitting in the laundry basket all night because I just couldn't make myself do it yesterday)--she was wearing nothing but sandals.
• I put her sandals on the wrong feet.
• When we came inside I let her jump on the bed with her sandals on.
• Then we played steamroller, a game where I do log rolls on the bed and she has to get out of the way by climbing over me. If she's too slow I roll over her (gently, of course) but she knows that she "lost" the game and throws a tantrum. I didn't let her win every round (but I only rolled over her twice).
  
• Then we had a shower--I put Rachel in the tub and told her to tell me when the water got hot (because it takes several minutes for the hot water to come through the pipes) only she forgot to tell me so it got too hot and she just started screaming. I felt bad because usually she says "Yeah," when it's starts getting warm but she didn't and it just kept getting hotter and hotter.
• I didn't get her dressed until 2:00 today.
• When we were coloring I told her that she couldn't have the crayon I was using. She cried. I gave her a different crayon to color with. She threw that one so I made her put all of the crayons away.

So sometimes I'm a bad mom. But I think it's ok. Because some of the things on the list are things that are fun, like eating a whole package of cookies together. I suppose that's technically a bad mom thing from the perspective of an adult, but it's a great mom thing from the perspective of the child.

I even let her open the cookies, lick the frosting, stick them back together and put them back in the package.

That's definitely a bad mom thing; but also a good mom thing.

Making her do chores is probably a good mom thing from the perspective of an adult, but from the perspective of a child it's a bad mom thing. Rachel loves to load and unload the washing machine and I think that's fine. She likes taking the cans out of the cupboard but she doesn't like putting them back. I made her do it, anyway. So I was a bad mom in Rachel's eye, but probably a good mom in yours.

Child labor

It's hard to be a good mom all the time because someone will end up thinking you're a bad mom, anyway. I think it's important to balance being a good and a bad mom. If I was a "good mom" from a grown-up's view all the time, Rachel and I would miss out on a lot of fun. But if I was a "good mom" from a baby's view all the time, Rachel would miss out on a lot of discipline and work. So I think I'll just be a bad mom.