I'm Not the Perfect Mother

I'm not the perfect mother.

--I let my kids play video games too much, probably.

--I let them watch TV when they want.

--I feed them hot dogs and fish sticks for lunch. Sometimes together.

--I don't buy organic everything at the grocery store.

--I let my children drink sodas and Kool Aid.

Sometimes, I wish I were the perfect mother, and then my children would be perfect in every way.

But how much fun would that be?



Ok, that's not my child. And I don't even own a sprinkler that looks like that. But sometimes, it's fun to pretend.

I have three children, two girls with a boy wedged between 'em. Oldest daughter is from my previous marriage. She's 17 going on 30. I'll call her Angie. My son is 11 and entering middle school. I'll call him Jimmy. And youngest daughter is 9, going into the fourth grade. I'll call her Kathy. Those aren't their real names, of course, but they will do.

We used to have a sprinkler like the one pictured, back when Angie was in elementary school and Jimmy and Kathy were still in diapers. The kids loved running through the water and letting it squirt in their eyes and ears and maybe up their noses. They'd stand over the sprinkler with their mouths open, trying to get a good drink like it was a water fountain.

We had sprinklers like that when I was a child, too, back before everyone had automated sprinkler systems. We would run around in them and play, and we thought it was better than even the swimming pool. Well, ok, maybe not better than the swimming pool, but it was still fun.

Now, we have an automated sprinkler system that comes on at 4 a.m. Nobody's running through it.