We all know that moms wear many hats. In any given day, I'm a chef, chauffeur, cook, maid, organizer, tutor, etc... etc... But there is one area of motherhood I seem to have failed. My kids don't have any concept of personal hygeine whatsoever!!!
Two days in a row this weekend, my 13 year old son has left the house for the day without brushing his teeth! This is GROSS! He has dragon breath when he hasn't brushed his teeth. Isn't he supposed to be impressing girls at this age? Maybe this is a good thing for me because the minute a girl gets close enough to talk to him, he'll send her screaming for the hills with his breath! It's not just the teeth, either. He has zits already, but he won't wash his face unless we NAG him. And Eric NAGS him constantly!!! Eric had really bad acne as a teen and doesn't want our kids to go through that, but they just don't seem to care! And, even worse, the other day Eric asked Taylor if he'd remembered to "D-up" (that's our nickname for deoderant), and the 13 year old boy said, "I didn't do it today because I took a shower." HELLO??!!??? What have we been teaching our kids over here??? It seems to be the case with all the kids here... they could care less about it. Megan has to be reminded every day to "D-up", even though she's been using it for quite a while! She's also been known to leave the house without brushing her hair.... and getting that girl to take a shower! She hates doing it, yet once she's in the shower, she spends 30 minutes doing who knows what! Ian hates to brush his teeth, and will often lie and tell me he's done it when he really hasn't. He is also notorious for taking a 30 minute shower and coming out of the bathroom with dry hair that smells dirty. Yes, you understood that right... 30 minutes and not a drop of soap touched his body! Does anybody out there offer some kind of "doomsday" class about personal hygeine? I think my kids need to be scared spitless - every othe technique on earth isn't doing a thing!!!Okay - rant over - it seems to be the popular theme of the day on blogs I've looked at this morning! :) On the plus side, the phone guy came out and fixed my phone yesterday. He was supposed to charge me $50 for the job, but since it took him 5 minutes, he gave it to me as a freebie. He even told me what to tell the Cox Customer Service person who would call to do a survey on my experience with the repairman. Can I even remember what was really wrong with it, let alone the cover story? Heck no.... will I give him a "10" for a job well done? Absolutely!
4 comments:
I'm not looking forward to the day that I can't toss my kids in the tub and scrub them myself. Maybe if I convince them they don't want to be the stinky kid we can work it out. Thanks for coming over to my blog. :)
This is a huge deal for me. My grandma was a dentist and my mom worked for him as a teen, and so she was a nazi about brushing teeth. I have been cavity free up until just now. I have 4 fillings I need to get...get this....because I brush TOO HARD. It is very hard for me to have Marce brush his teeth daily. The face washing thing is huge for me too because I had well, not acne, but not a clear face in HS, so I tried different things and my mom finally found something that worked for me, and I really felt great about it, so I was really faithful. Try having them do it in the shower, it's easy...if you can get them to shower...
How about some kind of reward or fun thing to do at the end of each week if they chart everyday (a visible chart they can all see)that they have showered, D-up, washed hair, washed face, brushed teeth and come to you to prove it. THink of it as another type of house fairy. I know this means coming up with something to do on Sat. but it's an idea to make it positive. You have my sympathy. It reminds me of struggling with you and Adam. Love ya, mom
If it's any comfort I hated to brush my teeth when I was a teenager. I would much rather chew gum. It's gross I know.
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