Of Course I'm Perfect, Part 2

Ok, so it's not my worst parenting blunder. It's just my most recent. But oh does it highlight so many others that it's worth including in this category. Just so you know, I have an UNENDING supply of parental blunder stories to share. I'm human. And female. And live in a household of MEN. Men who could all be engineers if one of them would just get off his lazy buttocks and produce some actual work. Sigh. (Lost? See yesterday's post).

You know how sometimes you have to apologize to your kids because you screwed up and have to admit you did the wrong thing? I'm in that place more than I care to admit. So we've been camping (as you read yesterday) and are home, and I don't know about your place, but around Colorado we've been setting some serious heat records. I spent Friday packing, Saturday camping, ½ of Sunday un-camping, and the other half lying in my wind tunnel trying not to pass out. I'd forgotten to pack my asthma meds and the lack thereof had finally kicked me in the ass.

“Mom, will you make me some baked oatmeal?” This is a concoction that was served to YellowBoy at camp, and he's been living off of it since. I can just hear the conversation at your house right now,

“Mom? Watcha reading?”

“Some crazy lady who wouldn't get up off her butt and spend ten minutes to make a simple dinner for her son.”

“What was she not making?”

Recipe:

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 stick melted butter

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Mix. Pour into lubed 9x13 pan and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350. It tastes like a granola bar, only it's cheaper and they drink milk with it. Adds up to good in my book. Which might not match yours...but there ya' go.

Here's where it gets ugly. At first I explain about the heat and the packing and the tiredness and the horror of heating the kitchen with the stove to bake. He just calmly looks at me and says,

“Mom, remember when you got back from being gone, and I asked you to make me a sandwich, and you said you're so tired from traveling and that I can make my own sandwich? And then the next day you said you were sorry and that if you'd been thinking of it the right way, you would have spent the five minutes making me the sandwich. This is like that. Can I have some baked oatmeal?”

Of course I cave. If something I did over a year ago has made such a big impact that he can quote me, then I've totally blown it. Baked oatmeal it is. Want some? It's a lot easier to eat than crow.