So someone VERY KIND (the mother of a friend of my kids) invited my 3 oldest kids to go to a very popular kids’ pizza place recently. Here are the problems:
1. The invite came at 4:30 when we already had a ham in the oven for dinner.
2. The invite came through the woman’s daughter to me and was discussed with my kid before it was discussed with me, so my kids got all excited first.
3. The invite was for a Saturday night, and this place gets seedy and crazy on a Saturday night.
4. I just had a baby and am in postpartum Mama Bear mode where all I envision is bad things happening to my kids. This woman has 1 kid to take along with my THREE (ages 8, 6 and 4) … how is she gonna watch all of them at once?
5. I can’t let her pay for THREE of my kids and I can’t pay for them, either (NICU bill plus about 8 other hospital-related bills that are coming in).
6. I once saw a CSI episode where a kid wasn’t stolen from this pizza place but was taken into a bathroom … this is why I can’t watch those shows anymore and stick mostly with reality TV-land (Flipping Out, Housewives of [fill in the blank], etc.), except for Gray’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters.
7. Aron had dinner to make and leaves to rake and couldn’t go with them to supervise. I have a tiny baby and didn’t wanna chase the kids around while navigating hundreds of other kids and simultaneously nursing my baby. Leaving him home was not an option because I’d been gone already that day for over 2 hours and just didn’t want to leave him again.
So … am I a bad mom or a paranoid mom or a really excellent mom or a hovering mom or what? I don’t really care. I’d rather have disappointed kids than lost or stolen kids any day.
