In which I don't win parent of the year...

When I first became a parent I had visions of creating a childhood bubble free from the trappings of our consumer culture.  My house wasn't going to be full of plastic crap, my kids weren't going to watch TV, the words 'control' and 'crying' were never going to be used adjacently in a sentence coming out of my mouth and I certainly had no intentions of bribing my children.   I guess it's easy to be idealistic in theory.  Reality is somewhat more difficult.

I can count the number of times I've slept through the night in the past twelve months on one hand.  More often than not I (or Mr) spend several hours in the middle of the night tending to wakeful children.  When it comes to sleep Minty operates by the motto, 'outwit, outplay, outlast'.  In fact come to think of it Minty would probably make the ultimate survivor contestant.  She eats virtually nothing, would happily go for weeks without bathing, loves to go to the toilet outside and has more stamina and determination than anyone else I've ever met (adults included).  

Anyway, I digress.  Frankly it's difficult to keep high parental standards when you're extremely sleep deprived.  I've already broken my commitment for Lent.  The past couple of days we've watched more TV than I care to admit.  If I was going to make excuses I'd tell you it was because everyone has been sick, we've been cooped up in the house and I've been having trouble even keeping my eyes open let alone coming up with meaningful activities to keep the kids occupied all day.  But no one really likes excuses, least of all me.  So all I can do is wake up tomorrow and try again.  Try not to resort to ABC for kids, try not to operate on a short fuse, and try not to be that parent who garners scornful looks from strangers for her out of control children.

Pictures on our way to the doctor.  I thought I was being a responsible parent seeing as the kids have been sick for 3 weeks.  The doctor on the other hand seemed to think I was this lady.