BEING SCHOOLED BY MY SIX YEAR OLD

Once my toddler told me when she should start to potty train, and let’s face it, there was no training to be had, she simply told me that it’s time to get rid of the diapers so that she could relieve herself with some dignity, I realized that this was probably just the beginning of Mommy being schooled by child.

When My Words Come Back to Bite Me…

After our rental disaster with Mr. and Mrs. T., I began to focus on saving money so that we could afford to buy a home in our dream city of Newburyport, MA. Juggling a full time job, a young child, 2 dogs, and taking care of the house and all that goes with it, I realized that something had to give, so I decided that cooking was the one thing that I would forgo. Truth be told, I simply didn’t have the interest in cooking. Also, it can be pretty darn lonely as a single parent, I’m either stuck at home every night with my child, or going broke from paying babysitters $10 per hour just so I can go out and socialize with my friends. Going out for dinner became my new social outlet. Of course with a young child, our dinner time was 5:00 pm, not 8:00 like the rest of the world. So there we would sit amongst the Grammy’s and Grampy’s enjoying the early bird specials - but I didn’t have to cook and I got to spend time with other humans. It worked for us.

Until I announced that we were going to start saving money so we didn’t have to rent anymore….It was a Tuesday night and I was looking forward to taco Tuesday at our favorite local spot, Agave. Mostly I was looking forward to my Tuesday margarita at the end of a long commute home from Boston. As I was packing us up to go out, my daughter said “Where are we going Momma?” I replied: “Agave, baby, it’s Tuesday night.” She said: “But we went out for dinner last night. I thought we were trying to save money. Shouldn’t we cook dinner in tonight?” Me: (Wait, what is happening here? Are you Elfing kidding me? How do I answer that? She’s right, and I want to set a good example, but what in the actual Elf? (for those of you who haven’t read the Elf in the Shelf, that was the moment when I decided to use “elf” instead of the other word because I’m trying to keep this somewhat clean. If I do use the real swear word, then you know I simply can’t get my point across without the actual expletives). So…now what? I had a stressful day at work, followed by a near 2 hour commute home, nearly missing our daycare pickup deadline of 6:00 pm, and for the entire almost 2 hour drive, all I could think of was a frosty margarita on the rocks. What now? I had no choice, I said: “Oh sweets you’re right, we need to stick with our goal of saving money, Good thinking!” I unpacked our things, opened the refrigerator and saw absolutely nothing, closed it and poured us both a bowl of cereal and called it a night.