Banana Surprise!

Sometimes in recounting my kids' activities to Rob or my mom, I'm suddenly stuck by how great and creative of a mom I appear to be...

"So I gave the kids a bucket of water and some paintbrushes and told them to paint the stone wall. And they did. For an hour and a half."
Reality: When my kids play with chalk, they walk inside with an eighth-inch layer of chalk dust on their rears (which they deposit in little bum-prints all over the house), and I have a 15-minute conversation with a neighbor while sporting a large chalky thumb print smudged across my nose.

"The kids and I had an adventure in the park where we were explorers out to discover waterfalls and statues. Then we had a 'picnic' of one shared package of cheese and peanut butter crackers. Then we played Simon says. Then we chased butterflies. Then we..."
Reality: Rob dropped us off at a cool but explorable-in-ten-minutes park with no playground for what was supposed to be 15 minutes while he checked out a job site last Saturday. And didn't come back to pick us up for an hour and 15 minutes.

"The kids love this dish called 'Banana Surprise' I invented - they ask for it each meal!"
Reality: They stopped eating bananas. Then grapes. Then apples. Desperate, I chopped up a banana, added yogurt, and pitted the kids against each other while animatedly auctioning off "Banana Surprise" to the most excited bidder. Not only has the fuss continued for the last 11 months, but I recently heard my 3-year-old sister begging my mom for Banana Surprise while over the phone.

"We had family game night tonight by the fire with homemade cookies."
Reality: I was so DONE with reading my 132nd book by 10am that we went to the library and returned them all. And by 6pm, the kids had already consumed a Caillou and a Wild Kratts and another Wild Kratts, and I felt like a terrible mom, and I had no other ideas to calm them down for bedtime. And I was cold. Oh, and I never went shopping.

"It's hilarious - the kids were window washers today and worked on cleaning the back door for over an hour."
Reality: I wanted to sit and drink coffee in peace. So I gave them squirt bottles and all my rubber-tipped cooking utensils and shoved them outside. With no instructions. And after I watched them drown a few dozen ants, this is the idea they came up with. Squirt, squirt, scrape. Squirt, squirt, scrape. For over an hour.

Do not be deceived. I am neither great nor creative...I'm usually just desperate.