"and the bad mother of the year award goes to...."

Me?!?!? Really?!?!? Oh! wow!!! I don't know what to say!!! I haven't even prepared a speech!!! This is so, well, expected.

My child is sick. With a fever. And a cough. And general malaise. And 30 minutes ago I finished yelling at him and assigning him chores. So my fevered, sniffling, hacking, weeping child was walking around the back yard picking up dog waste. And then he cleaned his toilet and bathroom sink. And now he is soaking in the tub. Hacking even worse. Probably because of the weeping. And the yelling. And the general sadness.

I didn't start out this day intending to break my child's heart. I knew by 7:00 this morning that he was too sick to go to school and generally, we've had a really good day. He's read a bunch. I've made several light meals for him. We've had a pretty peaceful day overall. But then he asked to watch tv and I made the mistake of telling him he could. He watched an episode of "The Universe" and then two shows on PBS. Then I told him he could only watch one more show and I set the timer to go off when the show was done. Only, the show he said was on, actually wasn't. So when I came back through the family room five minutes later and saw that he was watching some show aimed at teenagers, I told him he needed to either find something else quickly or turn it off. And he ignored me. So I repeated myself. And he looked at me and then kept watching his show. So I told him that he was done and he needed to turn it off. And he picked up the remote, but continued to watch. So I told him that if I turned it off he would have no tv for the weekend. And that, is when it all went to Hell.

My loving, sweet child whom I adore, looked at me and KICKED my couch. Are you kidding me? I told him very firmly not to do that again. And. He. DID. And that is when he was assigned to pick up the dog waste. And at this point I was beyond firm and had resorted to yelling. The toilet and sink cleaning came when he refused to do the first task. There was no yelling for them. I was just very matter of fact. But by that point, the damage had been done.

So, in light of the wonderful use of punishment on a sick child, I sadly accept my award. And hope that I can hold it together a little better tomorrow.

Debt Diet - $0 (never escaped the house today)