It’s about 6:00pm and I hear a knock on the door. Of course I hurry and through my jacket on as I have no bra on, I’m in my PJ’s and I still have not brushed my teeth. My oldest son’s friend and his mom were on the front porch and I’m thinking to myself oh how nice she is coming to introduce herself - WRONG!!! She starts off by telling me that there was “an incident with our boys today” in which apparently my son had stuck something in her sons ear causing it to bleed. She immediately ran her son to the e.r.( I probably would have done the same myself) to find out that he was indeed OK and just had a little scratch on his ear, did you get that not in his ear on his ear. She then preceded to had me a receipt for the $100 co-pay she had to pay because, “as parents we are responsible for our children’s actions” she stated. So I’m thinking what the hell I don’t have $100 dollars and wait what happened? I call my 7 year old up to find out. He had gotten one of those poppers at school, its like a rubber ball cut in half and hollowed out and you flip it and it pops back out. He did hold it up to his friends ear, and the pop scared his friend I’m sure, but there is just no way it could have caused a scratch on his ear yet alone bleeding, it was a rubber ball!

the little culprit!!

So I tell the mom that I’m sorry for my son’s poor choice of entertainment but that I really did not think it justified my being responsible for her co-pay to the e.r. Of course she pursued a bit more explaining that she didn’t have the money and that when she saw the blood she panic (and mind you she was very nice the entire time) and I sympathized with her and explained again that I didn’t feel I was responsible for this but I saw the conversation was developing into one very round circle so I asked for a copy of the receipt and told her I would discuss it with my husband. She said she had a copier at home and would have her daughter run it over. Well that was yesterday and I still have not seen her daughter or a copy of the receipt.

So here is the question that keeps rolling through my mind, where do we draw the line in taking responsibility for our children’s actions? My son made a poor judgement call in playing with an object so close to someones ear, so does that alone make me responsible for his actions? I do not believe the object could have harmed the friend in any way other that probably scaring him. It’s hard to say, I wasn’t there and these are only 7 year old boys. If there was without any doubt my child had harmed another child I would immediately take responsibility in whatever way necessary, even paying a hospital bill. But in this case I don’t know where the scratch came from, I don’t know that it justified a visit to the e.r. (not that I am criticizing her decision to take him in any way, that’s a choice only a mom can make in the moment and I cannot for one minute belittle that.) So now I wonder does her absence show that maybe she somewhat agrees with me and realizes she cannot fairly hold me accountable or had this just begun. Crazy thing is these days, people are getting harder and harder to figure out. Sometimes the people you think are civil and decent end up being your worst nightmare![ad#ad-6]

So here I am sitting at the computer working and my son brings me down a piece of paper that had he found in my room. It reads:

Well this sucks! My daughter left this for me on my bed not realizing I don’t even make it to the bed most nights. She didn’t want to disturb me while I working but needed to get her point across and that she did indeed!

Trying to balance the kids, housework and working from home seems impossible at this very moment after reading her note. How do I explain to my kids that mommy is working day and night learning how the Internet works so I can make money from it to help provide a better quality of life for them? There really isn’t an explanation good enough to justify not spending more time with them. Parenting really sucks sometimes. No matter how hard you try to do right by your kids it seems as though something is there to smack you in the face. I guess one of the greatest lessons we can teach as parents is that we are not perfect, only human. To my kids, “I’m sorry for neglecting you guys and although I still have to work, I also need to take more time to hang-out with you!”[ad#ad-6]

Yep as of today it is official, winter is on it’s way. It snowed here throughout the day. Snow represents two things in my life cold and Christmas and I’m not ready for either of them.  Now the cold I can somewhat deal with even though my old creaky bones ache more than ever but Christmas only creates stress for me. See I’m one of the “put off til’ the last minute” kind of gal’s and every year I regret not preparing better.  I do buy throughout the year but then I always end up giving the toys to the kids or I sell the clothes on e-Bay because it’s the right season for swimsuits somewhere on this earth.

mommy I'm ready

And of course each year after Christmas I make the resolution that I am going to purchase so much each month but I’m still working on follow through with that one! So does anybody out that have the tried and true success story for welcoming Christmas but leaving the stress behind? Let me know even though I love the last minute shopper plan of attack, I really could use a new strategy.
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