Turnabout is fair play

I can remember like it was yesterday (wait, was it yesterday?) when my parents embarrassed the crap out of me and I vowed to never, ever do the same thing to my kids.

I was an idiot.

Now that I am a mom, I cannot wait until the day my kids cringe and attempt to disassociate themselves from me because I am embarrassing them. Why am I so evil? Oh that’s easy. Turnabout is fair play!

You see, I am keeping a very close tab on all of their antics. I have developed a quid-pro-quo system for making sure that I repay them in kind. Here are some examples from my list:

1 shopping center tantrum = 1 blaring Mommy music and a big “Hi Honey!” in the school parking lot.

1 pitched fit in front of our friends = 1 time Mommy hangs out and tries to be cool when friends come to visit

1 ruined restaurant dinner = 1 time I “accidentally” show up at the same place they are meeting their friends for dinner

And those are just the small things.

I’ve been putting some extra effort into longer term ideas as well to try and balance the years of daily pain and suffering we call parenting. Here are just a few of them:

Constantly calling their favorite singer by the wrong name and/or singing along loudly with the wrong lyrics (hello, princess music CD that you refused to let me sing along to!)

Referring to their stream of boyfriends as “What’s his name”, regardless of how long they have been dating. (I have to thank my mom for that idea….used to make me crazy).

Imposing an early curfew and inexplicably requiring them to cancel plans at the last minute (hello, date night? what the heck is that again?)

I could go on and on and on.

So if you happen to see me, standing with a big smile on my face while my two year old has a complete breakdown in Aisle 5, you now know that you don’t need to worry about my sanity. It’s just fine. I’m just adding one more item to my mental “turnabout is fair play” book.