It's good to be the Mom

What have I been up to in the last week? Being the best parent ev-ah! For one thing, we let Little Bit eat dinner on the couch while watching Dorya. And it was pizza, ya'll! We also had hot dogs for lunch one day, too. I must confess that Little Bit has been getting to watch some tv just about every morning and evening. If we tell him it's time to turn off the tv, his little face gets red, tears spring to his eyes, and he puts his little hand out in a stop motion, like warding off Swiper*, and cries, "No!! More tye-vee!"

Being awesome, we give in and say, "One more story. One more."

The theme songs of all these toddler shows are stuck in my head. I've suggested a drinking game to DH where you have to drink everytime one of the characters on these shows break the fourth wall. You'd be very drunk watching Dora, what with all the "Say map! Say map!" and "Say backpack!" It's one way to get through the horror.

At one point this weekend, Little Bit was doing something that we'd told him not to do (banging a toy on the table, I think). I got *that* tone and said, warningly, "Sonnnn..." Then, being self-aware, I said, "If you don't stop that, I'm going to say, 'Sonnnn...' again."

DH laughed. Sometimes it's just too much trouble to follow-through, ya know? Then, we somehow got Little Bit distracted.

However, my favorite parenting moment this last week was when we were driving home. Little Bit started asking to sit in my lap. I said that he couldn't right now; he had to stay in his seat while we're in the car.

DH then said to Little Bit, "OK, as soon as we get home, one of us will hold you." Then he said to me, "It helps if you can say yes to him in some way."

I said, "Yeah, I know. But I'm a mean mom and sometimes I just like saying 'no'."

* As an aside, check out that link above for Swiper. I googled "Dora Swiper" and came across an interesting post by a history/religion professor about Swiper as an archetypal "diabolical fox-spirit" found in many religions. DH and I were just recently talking about how it was interesting that you have to say "Swiper, no swiping!" the ritually important three times in order to keep him from swiping.