Who said motherhood is a thankless job?

Probably me. I'm sure I've said it more than a few times. It's true sometimes. There are plenty of tasks a mom does throughout her normal day that no one would ever want to tackle, but there are so many wonderful, sweet things too.

If I can just brag for a minute, I'll tell you... my kids have great manners. Sure, they have their moments that make me have to take a deep breath and count to 10 (it's possible my short fuse is made worse by pregnancy hormones), but thankfully there are plenty of nice, polite moments interspersed. I receive compliments all the time on how well mannered they are. The person giving the compliment is usually only our company for a short while or they'd bear witness to the aforementioned not so good moments, but no matter, we'll take the compliments. They're well deserved.

The kids are really good about saying please and thank you for everything. I've drilled it into them to the point that they no longer need prompting. It's now automatic, sometimes when it's not even necessary. Example: One of them will sneeze, the other says "Bless you.". The sneezer says thank you, the other says you're welcome. The sneezer says "Good job using your manners!", the other says "Thank you", the sneezer says.... well, you know. Finally I pipe up, "Ok. That's enough. Let's talk about something else".

If I forget to compliment them for their manners, they are quick to remind me. Wyatt will tell me, "Mommy, I said "tank you" so nice to da man. I have such good manners." and I agree with him, he does. He will even praise Hadley when she says it. "Hadley, dat was good saying tank you. I like your manners."and of course, she says thank you. He makes sure I keep up with my manners too. If I don't respond quick enough to his 'thank you', he'll say "Mommy? Can you please say 'you're welcome' to me?"

Hadley thinks if you say please after everything, the answer will be yes. If I tell her no, she'll ask again, this time adding a long, drawn out "pweeeeeeeeeze..." after the request. She has a hard time continuing to use her manners if the answer is still no, which it usually is.

Wyatt will often ask "Mommy, who made dis yummy breakfast?" after I place the kids heaping plates on the table. I give him a blank look. Um, our live in chef?? "Me" I reply. "Oh mommy, dis is sooo good. Tank you for making dis yummy breakfast.....  Mommy, go ahead and fix your breakfast now". How thoughtful of him.

I'm trying to teach the kids about gratitude. Every night, we say our prayers before bed. I used to just recite "Now I lay me down to sleep..." but now I like to make up a prayer where we thank God for the blessings he has given us. The kids call it the "Uncle Josh prayer". I'm not sure exactly how it started, but they both call it that, probably because we list our family members we are thankful for, which includes Uncle Josh. I encourage the kids to add something they are thankful for and Wyatt usually says movies or Transformers. That's fine, he gets the point. Hadley just re-lists the family members we just listed. That's fine too. Maybe she's just really thankful for them.

The other night when I was saying prayers with Hadley, I said thank you God for the good food you give us and she quickly interrupted me. "NO mommy. It yucky. It NOT good food!" She must have been referring to the white chicken lasagna she had turned her nose up at earlier that evening. At least she's honest...

Speaking of good manners, or lack of, the day has officially come where I must clean up my potty mouth once and for all. No more letting the little four letter words slip out in haste or moments of crisis. It's really amazing we've gone this long without anyone repeating them.

The other day, I was watching Wyatt try to do something with a toy. He couldn't figure it out and the toy slipped from his hand, crashing to the floor. He muttered "G** d*** it." under his breath, clear as day. I sucked in a sharp breath and explained that is a very bad thing to say and he should not ever say it again, but I was thinking the back of my mind, he heard it somewhere... I really don't like saying that one especially since I don't like using the Lord's name in vain, but it's possible it slipped out in a time of distress. Not long after that I heard him exclaim "s***!" when something happened. Oh boy, have we unleashed some kind of curse word flood gate? I heard one slip out of Hadley a while back, but that doesn't surprise me. She's a parrot. I think if I remove the offending words from my vocabulary so I set a good example and continue to reprimand if I hear it, we'll be ok. I'm just glad it happened at home so I could correct it and not at school or in front of anyone else. I would have been mortified.

Also, spelling curse words does not make it ok. I have a friend who constantly spells them, even on Girls' Night Out when there are no kids in sight. "O-M-G, are you f-u-c-k-i-n-g kidding me??" Somehow we convince ourselves that it's not as crass or wrong if you spell. Her son is such a smarty pants that I'm sure it won't be long before he's spelling them in preschool.

It's really quite unbecoming anyway and not something I like to do, but occasionally s*** will slip out before I even realize it. It's time to clean it up and replace these slips with more innocuous words, like "Bananas!" or cultural slang references like "Oy vey!", one of my personal favorites.

For the most part, my kids are sweet, well mannered and have clean language and for this, I'm grateful. Five minutes later they may be pushing each other or pulling hair, but they always say sorry. And of course, the one receiving the apology always says thank you for apologizing!