Apod Shape Production. Welcome back to another episode.
About I a Bad Mom podcast, the podcast that continually gives and gives and gives and a bit isn't us. It's other people sharing their stories of parenting fails and I guess just the ups and downs of a day in the life of a parent.
Yeah, we love getting memes and stuff like that on Instagram. Actually, I saw one of our friends, Karina, put something.
On because she's in toddler phase.
Though.
Yeah, she's in a completely different phase. It's so different, but it took me right back there.
It was like one minute your sterilizing bottles and then the next minute you are reasoning with your toddler about wearing gum boots.
Oh yeah, ape bed, Yeah yeah, that is really where she's at right now, poor thing.
Talk about where people are at.
Though. One of our friends, Christy, she makes me lol. She's got two boys and a daughter. Her daughter is obviously the same age as Gracie. The interactions of mum with a teenage boy in comparison.
To what we get because obviously you're two girls. I got two girls.
It's just so funny, Katie, Like, I feel like, so she's screenshots what she chats to him about. It's almost like that age old Sorry, sir, I didn't do my homework because the dog ate it. That's what she gets every day about him needing another five dollars on his Spriggy card to buy a pie at school.
Every day.
Every day, Katie, there's a new excuse as to why he knew nothing copied. I don't even know if he's chat gyputeing it. It's like there is a new excuse every single day as to why he needs the five dollars for the same outcome, which is a pie at the tuck shop.
My girls do this after school as well, Like they're always asking me for extra money, and I'm like, pack more.
Lunch, yeah, more food, yeah.
But every day, like there was one in there the other day that was exactly like the dog ate my homework. Didn't though, because if you just did what I asked, which was pack your fucking lunchbox this morning.
The thing that I loved, though, is that there's a different excuse for every day, so instead of just I'm hungry, can I have five.
Dollars for a pie?
Oh?
You would believe it. I was walking across the school playground and a bird came out of the sky and it took my lunchbox.
It is like that, Katie, but every day she hits a new one that's creative, that's very creative, creative. Am I a bad mum for feeling like I was never going to reach the finish line? A forty eight hour bender was what I had last weekend. And I'm talking a fun parenting bender, not anything fun. Actually would have been longer than forty eight hours because it was Friday
through to Monday. There was so much going on in the weekend that was so we had the normal routine on the Saturday morning of like the rush between netball from there to dropping one to the Cairo because she had the worst headache in the world, went back to dance pickup. Rush from dance pickup, I took them to see that Leela and Stitch but the new movie because I thought I was being a nice mom. Plus I was like, I just need to sit still and just decompress for a little bit.
But then that night, Katie, on.
A Saturday night, after a really lovely afternoon, they just blow up at each other.
It's like seven.
Forty five, right, I'd watched Behavior, It wasn't like me flying off the handle.
Because one thing happened.
Elsie went over to do something near Gracie, and I watched Gracey elbow Elsie so that she slid off the table, you know, like when you're leaning someone and someone knocks your arm and then you So I watched that, and then Elsie turned around.
She was quite teary.
Now it takes a bit to get there for else, but she was quite teary over that. So I just looked and went, pull your head in, Grace. Everything is calm and nice right now, like everything had been done, dinner, all the rest.
It was calm. And then I turned around. Then Elsie's at it anyway. It was like three strikes Katie.
And then after the third strike, I was like, still calm and preserved. I say that now, I said, you know what, the three strikes, You're gone.
Go to your room. I don't want to hear anyone's story. I don't need anything.
Go to your room, be quiet, read a book, decompressed, go away from me and each other. And that's how I stayed right centered, like no yelling, just really firm. Now, one thing that I suck at at parent is following through with the disciplinary part of it. Once they've apologized or can see the light to it.
Yeah, I'm the same.
I'm exactly the same.
I'll throw out a punishment because I'm really angry about something they've done something wrong, and then the minute there.
Yeah, and they're on board, reasonable and nice again.
Yeah, I'll go, Oh, that's okay, Yes, you can sit and watch some TV with me. This particular night, I was like, no, Rachel, it's obviously not working, so I was like, no, go to your rooms. Plus, it was quarter to eight. You both didn't need to behave like that. You're both actually unkind humans to each other right now, and that's not what we're doing.
Do you think it's tiredness that makes them more like that because they've had a big day.
I've had a big day as well, Like Gracie dances for like three hours in the morning, Elsie's played netball. It's a big day, and you're coming off the back end of like a big week at school, and they both like have so much going on on a Friday afternoon at school, so there's so much going on. It was just not needed, though, Like it was really nasty shit to each other. Anyway, that happened, Gracie comes back out, and she just stepped up to the plate and she wanted to go for it.
She wanted to fight. She wanted to like.
Tell me everything that was wrong with me, why she should be allowed to come back out.
She's apologized.
I'm talking.
Everything you can think of was thrown at me in a conversation, and I was like, calm, calm, calm, explode fireworks.
I said, the more you keep coming back to try and make me change my mind, I am not.
This is the problem.
It went on forever, and then even that in itself, Katie, I can't see the finishing line. I just wanted to get into my bedroom to go away from them for a bit, like we'd been stuck like glue all day. Like I was like, I just need ten minutes away from you, and now it's made it even worse. Anyway, positive news out of that didn't back down. They went into the rooms. They read the books, and then I said lights out eight thirty, like usually on a Saturday we'll watch a movie and it might be nine oh.
And she said, I'm so sorry for ruining your night. I said, you didn't ruin anything. If anything you ruined your own night.
I sometimes, and even now with the girls at the age that they are at, I sometimes look back at when they were like little four, yeah, six kind of age, and I'm like, oh, wasn't that nice that you could put them to bed?
And I know not always like that.
People, yeah up and all the rest of it. Only need to drink water for half an hour. But the ability to put them to bed.
Early, yeap. Yeah, have your own evening.
Yeah, even you like eight thirty nine, If that's when they're going to bed, that's a big chunk of your night.
It's gone. I find the same. I'm like, I'm the same as you, though, Like it's gone.
I remember some days I used to change the clock so they thought they were going to bed later, and sometimes they would be lights out and in bed at six thirty.
Yeah.
No, my kids have never been I've never been that luck.
But the thing is like, I just want time to just decompress away. I need to like just you know, move away, let me decompress, and then I'll probably come back a little bit better. Now I'm sort of trying to then get everything ready for Elsie's Network Carnival. The girls had to be up at six, to leave at six forty, for us to drive an Aaron a bit to get to the Network Carnival for her to be
there by like seven forty seven point fifty. So we're getting to Netball on the other side of the earth at seven forty in the morning, and Gracie in tow she was like.
Oh God, what am I going to do all day? I was like, I don't know.
But we've got two camp chairs and an umbrella and food and water and everything that you need for a whole Network Carnival. And you know when we were leaving, when the sun was going down. The sun was going down. Katie, We've been at this Network Carnival for talk about finish line. I couldn't see the finish lines in my life.
I was like, this is.
A never ending day and it's a Sunday, and now the sun is going down and I'm still on the other side of the earth.
With my one child.
That is utterly exhausted. And then I've got Gracie, whom I have to give accolades to. I thought she was going to be twenty five thousand times worse. I thought she would have made it to probably about ten thirty in the morning and gone, I'm bored.
I want to go home.
I'm ah. From her side of things, I was really proud of her, But yeah, dragging my ass out of Neple Carnival watching the sun go down that even in itself, Katie, You're like, I've still got to get home. I've got to unpack, I've got to make dinner, I've got to feed the animals things.
Because it's your weekend. However, it's not your weekend because it's entirely about them.
I have my eyes where they need to go and what they need to do. Yeah, my life.
No, oh invited you out on Sunday, I know, coming.
Out on the boat. Oh yeah, I did. I really fancied it. And then I saw your fucking story. I was like, it was a glorious stay on the water. Anything look calm, and you had no kids in Doe. Of course I wanted to be on the boat with you.
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