THE TIME I DIDN’T PUSH MY KID TOO HARD AND JUST LET HER SUCCEED WITHOUT ME

Okay, so the other day I woke Zoey up and here’s the first thing she said. “Mom, can I make breakfast?” Part of me wanted to be like, “And make my kitchen look like Hiroshima? F**K no.” But somewhere inside my head a little voice was saying, “Let her try.” Now I don’t know about your little voices, but mine tell me to do some pretty awesome shit (that I can’t divulge here), so I like to listen to them.

ME: Sure, Zoey. Go potty first and then you can go do it.

By the time I came downstairs, Holden was eating a bagel with cream cheese and raving about it.

HOLDEN: Zoey, I LOVE this bagel and cream cheese.

Awwwww.

HOLDEN: It’s the BEST one I’ve ever had.

Hmmmm.

HOLDEN: It’s way better than Mommy’s.

Dude, it’s a crappy bagel with a schmear of cream cheese on it. It’s not even toasted because God forbid there’s a brown line that makes it inedible. Anyways, while he was busy relishing every moment with his magnificent bagel, she was doing this for me.

Cereal

And here’s what I wanted to say:

ME: Be careful. Don’t spill it. Do it slowly. I don’t need too much. Stop. Stop! STOPPPP!!!!

But I bit my tongue and watched, and this is what I said instead.

ME: Look at you! Nice work, Zoey.

And then I sat down and realized Holden was right. This was the best damn bowl of cereal I have ever eaten in my entire life. Have you ever noticed that food always tastes better when someone else makes it?

(Cut to later that day when we all got e-coli because she never washed her hands. Kidding. That didn’t happen. But seriously, cut to later that day when she came home from school.)

ZOEY: Mommm! There’s an important note in my folder!!

Ruh-roh.

ME: What is it?

ZOEY: We get to be the teacher at school and teach something.

Phew.

ME: Awesome. What do you have to teach?

ZOEY: Anything I want!

And then she handed me a yellow piece of paper and I started to read it. Each kindergartener would get to present to the class and teach them anything they wanted to demonstrate.

ZOEY: I want to teach them how to make breakfast.

Seriously? That’s the best thing you can come up with? I mean I didn’t actually say this out loud, but I nodded my head like her idea was really good and started to think about other ideas that would be much more impressive. I mean my kid is pretty darn smart (I’m a little biased) and surely she can teach something more complicated than how to pour a bowl of cereal.

For days I thought about other shit she could do. She could teach them how to build an amazing Lego set. She could teach them about volcanoes. She could teach them how to put a mentos in a diet coke and make it explode. She could teach them about all sorts of shit that’s way more interesting than a stupid bowl of cereal.

About a week went by before we touched that yellow sheet of paper again. I prayed she had forgotten about the breakfast idea, but as soon as I suggested we fill it out, she was all yap yap yapping about teaching her class how to make breakfast. She was so excited about her idea. Was I going to be a total a-hole mom and push her to do something else? Something I wanted her to do?

So we started to fill out the sheet. Here it is.

BreakfastSheet

Where the hell is spell check when you need it? And I don’t know where she’s gonna find a nun at her non-parochial, public school. But besides that, it looks pretty damn good.

And as she wrote out all the details, I started to realize two things. One, making breakfast all by yourself can be a pretty complicated thing for a six-year-old. I mean no, it’s not brain surgery or a giant amazing mentos fountain, but there are a lot of steps, and duh, maybe it’s easy for me because I’ve been doing it for 35 years.

And two, my kiddo is stepping up in front of her class for the FIRST TIME EVERRRR!!! And I want her to be super excited about it and make the best F’ing bowl of cereal that’s ever been made and feel like a billion bucks when she’s done.

So when the day comes for her presentation, I’m gonna tell her two things. Kick butt. And if you get nervous standing in front of all those kids, just picture them in their Captain America and Elsa and Anna underwear.

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There are 22 comments for this article
  1. momma2boys01 at 10:13 am

    I’m a teacher by trade-and mother of 2 boys (ages 7 and almost 10-9 and 11/12 he would say); and your response is PERFECT! 🙂 Rock On! And I <3 all of your other stuff too and have your book! 🙂

  2. greenapples at 10:24 am

    Glad to see your 6yo’s spell check works a lot like my 6yo’s! >..<

  3. Amber at 10:34 am

    I LOVE her spelling and writing.

  4. Heather Garcia at 10:43 am

    I am beaming with pride for both of you!!! Probably more for you though. It is so difficult to let our kids do something so simple by themselves. It takes about a 1000 times longer and it is so hard not to speak up or just help. But seeing the look of excitement spread across their face is worth it. ((((hugs)))

  5. Tarah at 10:44 am

    I wish I could like this post more than once. This is something I need to do more of too!

  6. Christin at 10:53 am

    Save that forEVER. My kid is now an elementary school teacher, and roars with laughter at the stories written when she was in kindergarten. Absolutely priceless.

  7. Christin at 10:55 am

    ps-I love her socks-be sure she knows cool socks are the very definition of a stylin’ kid 😉

  8. Kristine @ MumRevised at 11:06 am

    Remember: Cereal today is waffles tomorrow. I’m sure she will rock that presentation. Sounds like she is a natural.

  9. LorinNYC at 11:17 am

    Just you wait! It gets better. I let my 9 1/2 year make pancakes for the first time about two months ago…I’ve never had to make them again and she, plus her younger sister and brother, want them every weekend!!!!. Ok, I made pancakes once since then because we had company. But the best part is, I now get to say, “Well, you can make it” when she asks for food. I see light at the end of the servitude tunnel. As a work out of the house mom, this is huge! And if you are wondering if she makes them on the stove…with fire, the answer is yes. I’m a “free-range” parent (check out their website!) and I teach my kids to be independent! Great for Zoey on her presentation! And great for you for teaching independence so you won’t have to serve forever!!!! Woo hoo!

  10. CivilService at 11:27 am

    You had me at “Except for this one time I went to this pizza parlor and the pizza was awesome until I saw that the guy making it had two thumbs. Just to be clear, on one hand. Alrighty then, I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

    You sound like a grade A c**t.

    • FoxKitC at 11:42 am

      Yeah, and I’m honestly pretty sure her kid didn’t write that. It looks like adult handwriting attempting to look like a childs’. With occasional backwards letters and pretty d**n straight lines. She’s obviously trying to create clickbait articles for more readers.

      • SMS at 12:38 pm

        Actually I have an almost 6 year old girl and her handwriting looks exactly like that except she doesn’t do backwards S’s (but it is really common at that age if you ask any kindergarten teacher). So try again buddy! If you don’t like her then why do you read her blog….just to leave snarky comments?? Trolling much??!

    • Tawny at 3:13 pm

      How do you type with all those thumbs?

  11. Kerri Peterson at 12:18 pm

    Translation from a former first grade teacher: I will teach my friends how to: make breakfast. Materials I will bring from home: bagel, cream cheese, blueberries, plate, knife, glass of milk, napkin, silverware, placemat. Materials I will need from school: none.

  12. andrea at 12:46 pm

    My kindergartner leaves out lots of vowels too. Must be a kinder thing. 🙂

  13. tessamartinuk at 2:27 pm

    Wtg mom! I don’t know what it is but I’m sure there’s a conspiracy going on with my favourite bloggers you see this week has been a hard week for me as a Mum. My oldest daughter has been taking some of her GCSE exams a year early, she does the rest next year with everyone else. Here in the UK once you’ve done your GCSE’s you can legally leave school, get a job, or you carry on at school for 2 more years to do A levels then go to university for your degree get a job yadda yadda yadda so my 15 year old daughter has started her GCSE’s, will do the rest next year, do her a levels then go off to university. This is a whole new era in parenting for us, she’s growing up into an independent young woman, she’s not going to need me as much, I’m getting empty nest anxiety 4 years early!!! (This is where the bloggers conspiracy comes into it, every day this week one of my favourite bloggers had been talking about their kids growing up, even though all of your kids are so much younger. It’s as if you’re all saying it’s going to be ok, our kids grow up and eventually spread their wings and have their own lives) which I know is a good thing, ugh if im this bad 4 years early, I dread to think what I’ll be like in 4 years!!

  14. esoph at 2:36 pm

    i can’t wait till my kids make me breakfast!! (and her outfit is exactly what my daughter would pick — all pink)

  15. Jadie Cowsert at 3:40 pm

    THank you THANK YOU THANK YOU for writing your book! I just finished it my sister sent it to me as a birthday present. Seriously best gift ever! (she’s never read it so her birthday is well soon kind of its on its way to her already and my best friend) I read it literally in one day while neglecting my kids and it was so worth it! I am not alone in this messy thing called mom hood! and I am so glad someone else thinks like I do! (My mother always tells me if people heard the way I talked about my kids and didn’t know me I would be turned into social service) I Love my little a-holes too! Thanks for making moms out there feel normal!

  16. Tracy at 12:24 pm

    I love this. I am a teacher and have three of my own brats, I mean kids (ages 7, 7, and 8…don’t ask). When my son has to make something for school, a valentine box, an egg drop project, whatever, he wants to do it himself. So I let him. Then I see the projects of other kids and I know there is no way in hell the kids made them (at least without major help from their parents). My kid gets disappointed because his isn’t as good. But I know that when he gets older, and the other kids’ parents stop doing their work for them (if that actually happens), my kid’s project will ROCK because he has had lots of practice doing it himself.

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