Verbal vomitting

Some days I’m a good mom, some days I’m a great mom, most days, however, I would say I’m an average mom.

Yesterday, on the other hand, I was the worst mom imaginable to a 10 year old boy.

Hello, my name is Julie and I am a horrible mom!

There, I said it and I feel much better. Hamilton, my 10 year old, doesn’t feel much better about it, but I do, and that’s all that matters, right?

Wrong!

Last night, I did the unthinkable when I took Hamilton to basketball practice. Yep, I did. I stopped and talked to the coaches before I left to let them practice.

I don’t know what came over me.

They were chatting when I walked by.

They seemed so inviting.

So I stopped to chat.

They are great guys.

It’s not like I had never done it in the past.

So when I casually mentioned that it was getting harder and harder to motivate Hamilton to go to practice in the evenings, and they agreed when it came to their boys, I didn’t think much of it. We laughed about it and commented how it was a long season and all the boys were probably ready for a break this summer.

It never occurred to me that Hamilton would come home from practice in tears, humiliated and more mad at me than he had ever been before.

Turns out the coach lectured the team about respect and asked the boys to raise their hands if they felt the same as Hamilton about not wanting to come to practice anymore.

No one raised their hand…of course they didn’t. They aren’t stupid! If they would have raised their hands, they would have probably had to run laps.

Which would have suited Hamilton better than being called out in practice for a comment that his mom had made to the coaches.

I felt horrible when he confronted me last night! I never dreamed that comment would have caused the rucus it did in practice.

I couldn’t sleep last night…at all! Maybe that is my punishment for being such a horrible mom.

Or, maybe my punishment is this brief conversation that we had on the way to school this morning.

Hamilton: Mom, I need to tell you something, but you have to promise not to get mad.

Me: OK (uh oh, here we go…)

Hamilton: You’re head looks big from the side.

And that my friends, is how a 10 year old repays his mom for opening her mouth and inserting her foot all at the same time!