"Don't ask if you don't want to know the answer"

My last blog was pretty controversial, and deep. I am actually procrastinating, we are going on family vacation this week and I should be getting ready, or cleaning, or something, but instead I thought Oh, I'll write a quick blog, so I won't elaborate too much below......this one should just be fun.......enjoy!

So, I have had several of my friends post the following "fun" little questionnaire....I have to admit, I saw it and thought, "oh this will be fun".....I should of known better! I did not like some of the answers I got, now ~ I realize two of my kids are teenagers, so of course they didn't even want to participate, but I made them! "Don't ask if you don't want to know the answer" is a saying that quickly came to mind during this fun little experiment! Instead of being hurt or upset about some of their answers, obviously I need to learn from the answers and do some work on my parenting skills...........I don't yet have this "mom" thing perfected. So, I am going to share with you my bit of self-reflection this morning.

Kids Facebook Thing: WITHOUT ANY prompting, ask your child these questions and write down EXACTLY  what they say. It is a great way to find out what they really think. When you re-post put your child's age.

Well, I have three children, as most of you know.....they range in age from 7 to 17 and they are all 3 boys, and they all think they are HILARIOUS! I am just going to write their answers, in no particular order and my take on each on (I have to defend myself)!

1. What is something mom always says to you? 

I had expected "I Love you" or "be careful" or maybe even a "do your chores".......but NO, instead I got "cuss words" (not true by the way); "she tells me to shut up" (um......also not true) and "whatever" (this one is true). So, from these answers I learned that I possibly swear a lot, (though never personally directed at my children, they still see it as me saying cuss words ALL THE TIME). I also learned that "be quiet" , "please stop talking", "ok, you have said that 1000 times" all mean "shut up" to my child. And when my child asks me a question, any question, and my response is "whatever" it may seem like I don't care. Wow......so, some things to work on right out of the gate!

 2. What makes mom happy?

This one should be easy right? These answers weren't so bad, "pizza", "chocolate" and "flowers".What concerned me was the length of time it took for them to think of something, it shouldn't be a brain busting question.....do they think I'm not happy? Uh oh.....more work!

3. What makes mom sad?

Well, this one was much easier for them. "When someone dies", "when Rhett gets lost"  and "when someone passes away". All true.

 4. How does your mom make you laugh?

While I can think of a million other things I would add, if prompting was allowed, this was a round of answers that didn't make me feel like I'm on the bottom of the list for "Mother of the Year". "tells me happy things", "smiling" and "she tells funny jokes".

 5. What was your mom like as a child?

I am guessing they have heard enough of my childhood stories to draw their own conclusions to this, so the answers this round were "ornery", "awesome" and "kind of a brat" (all pretty true).

6. How old is your mom?

Well, this is always a great time......I mean really???? So, obviously only one of my children keeps track of my age, I got ...... "34?" , "36" and "I don't stinking know, 40?" no comment.....just no comment.

7. How tall is your mom?

Ok, well this is about the same as the previous question...they sort of just look at me like "why does this matter". From this question I learned that we need to work on simple measuring this summer..... "short" , "I don't know 5'5"?" , "6'5" "...........yeah

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

Oh, no....back to the serious questions! "sleep", "sell her car" , and "hang out with her friends" ok, those work!

9. What does your mom do when you are not around?

First an odd look, probably having never thought about it, "clean house", "she goes to the store" and "sings like a crazy woman". 

 10. If your mom becomes famous what will it be for? 

Well, this had some surprising answers " singing" (I totally expected this one from all of them), "being the governor maybe?" , "being president of the United States of America" (um.....didn't expect those last 2 AT ALL!)

11. What is your mom really good at?

Across the board the answer was the same "cooking", thank you children....and a shout out to my Granny, for instilling that in me.

 12. What is your mom not very good at?

"Mowing the Lawn, we've all seen that, and it's not good" (thanks), and then 2 "playing sports" obviously they don't believe my middle school all star stories.

 13. What does your mom do for a job? 

They all got this one right!!!! "she sells real estate", "real estate agent" and "she sells houses"

14. What is your mom's favorite food?

Oddly.....this was a tough one for them and I'm just going to add that none of them were even close to right...... "mashed potatoes", "steak", and "fish"........honestly, I have TONS of favorite foods, none of them made this list....

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

"That she tries her best to take care of us", "the way she sings" and "yeah, what Rhein said, she tries her best". Well, I might be doing okay at some of these things.....

16. If your mom were a character, who would she be?

Well, this is a fun one....I totally expected random "Golden Girls" characters (my kids have a small obsession with the Golden Girls), instead I got cartoons....."Mickey Mouse, I don't know why I said that" "Captain Hook" and "Tinker Bell".....hmmmmmmm

17. What do you and your mom do together?

A strange array here....."travel", "probably nothing" and "go to the store" ......hmmm, I'm gonna go with one of them is tired of answering these questions....maybe we should have taken small breaks!

18. How are you and your mom the same?

"We both wear glasses", "We both have two devices" (he means a phone and a tablet), and "nothing". This is actually hilarious, because all 3 of my children have many things that are similar to me, from looks, behavior, personality, anxiety.....I guess this question teaches me that we need to work on looking past superficial things.

19. How are you and your mom different?

Way easier!!! "I like football, and my mom doesn't", "I'm a boy, not a girl" and "I go to school, she doesn't".

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

Ughhhh.....holding my breath after I ask this one. "She takes care of us", "She tells me ALL the time" and "the way she talks to me" (this last answer is from the same child that said I cuss at him in question 1, just wanted to point that out). 

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?

Oh no, another one with a LONG pause afterwards...."the way he talks to her", "well, he married her, and they talk a lot", "that he's funny".  Thousands of other things that they didn't mention......I did learn from this question though, that I need to focus more on the positive things and not complain so much, they shouldn't need to think more than 2 seconds to say something I love about my husband.

22. What is your mom's favorite place to go?

Ok, so one of these is NOT true, but probably not the one you think! "Wal-Mart", "Topeka", "The liquor store" ......yep....no comment.

23. How old was your mom when you were born?

Ok, so another reminder that we need to work on Math this summer.....only one of these is wrong, but honestly he didn't even try to figure it out, he just guessed a random number, one that was older than the number he threw out there in question 6 about my current age! "38", "19", "29"

So, this was fun.....but it really was also insightful. Sometimes as parents we don't realize how certain things look from our children's perspective, or how seemingly harmless words might come off to them. I'm glad I asked them, it's a great activity to do with your kids......you might both walk away learning something, or you could do the opposite of me and not over analyze everything (I wish I could turn it off sometimes).