My Mom Moves, Part II

In today’s installment of Mom Moves, I’ll talk about some of the everyday moves I use in my Mom role.

The Striking Snake. You know this one. You see your child fall or reach for a bug to eat or pull something on top of themselves and you strike! You’re faster than a stepped-on-rattler and you save the day! Or, you try really hard to catch, prevent or move your kid or the object going into, on top of, or about to be eaten by that kid. Sometimes your Striking Snake reflexes are fast enough, and sometimes they aren’t. But in your mind? You’re always fast enough. I tend to need the Striking Snake with T more than with N.

The Poker Face. I use the Poker Face equally with each boy. With Tobin, the Poker Face is needed when he’s doing something dangerous/against the rules in the cutest freakin’ way possible. This happens a lot. And you can’t laugh, can you? Otherwise they do it over and over. With Nicholas, Poker Face is most often used when he’s being very sincere or serious and telling us a story. Sometimes it’s such an unintentionally funny story or he’s so excited telling it that I want to smile. But you can because he is serious. He. Is. Serious.

The Encourager. This one took me a while to perfect get close to being able to do consistently because I get frustrated and want to just do whatever my kids are struggling with. So, I put on my Encourager face, despite the number of times Nicholas has tried to get something cleaned up or the times when Tobin wants to put his shirt on himself. This is probably the hardest Mom Move for me because I hate to see my kids struggle.

The Bad Cop. For me, the Bad Cop move is very closely related to the Poker Face. It’s *hard* for me to be the Bad Cop. I want to make things easy for my kids, I want them to be happy and I want them to like me. I know I have to be the Bad Cop (especially when William is away), but I really hate it.

So, what are your trademark Mom Moves? Which ones do you have the most trouble with?