I *heart* this idea!

Keep a list of things you swore you’d never do as a parent

This is an awesome idea. I remember way back when I had such high ideals on, oh, everything mothering. I still do have high ideals, it turns out, compared to a lot of people out there. (You really get your eyes opened once you're no longer only in the very self selecting groups of mother's clubs and co-op preschools, where ideals are pretty dang high anyway... public school, even in the area of San Jose that wants very badly to be Los Gatos makes you realize you're a rock star in comparison to some [and a schlub compared to others, oh well!]).

Anyway, along the way we all seem to make concessions to reality. We buy a Happy Meal--then we at least rationalize that one child gets apples and one gets fries; they split it and it's somehow not total junk. We buy battery operated toys--and the 40 pack of AAAs at Costco. We crank up PBS Kids and Sprout, and if it's a bad day we may even let 'em watch SpongeBob just to get dinner made while being the only adult in the house. But we do a lot of things right, too.

Anyway, this is a great idea--to revel in inadequacies we never expected to have.

Oh, and I'm still preggers. Dammit. Oh, and cranky. And nesting. Let's see, what has Muffy done today? Hmmm. 5 loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, baked a ham (going to make split pea soup and freeze half tomorrow), and sorted a lot of maternity clothes for the charity pick up on Jan 4. The kids can't possibly have more clean clothes than they do, unless I start making them go naked, there is nary a dirty linen or towel in the joint, and even the trash rugs I put on the cement floor in the garage around the fridge and washer/dryer are freshly laundered. I hope this kid decides to get born before I have to paint the exterior of the house or something to use up this nesting energy.