There are times you feel like a great mom, and then there's the remaining 364.9 days of the year.

I have two teenagers and a pre-teen.  All girls.  And yet somehow I manage to NOT lose my mind. I didn’t say that I manage that greatly….

In my house, just this past week, you would have heard me make good parenting statements like these golden nuggets:

“please try to keep your swimsuit on this time”

“don’t make me smack your sunburn!”

 “please, please don’t dress like a hussy – we are on our way to church!”

“your spelling is terrible… seriously, you gotta work on that!”

“boys are icky”

“honey, go away, mommy needs some quiet time”

Earlier in this month, Daughter #2 (almost 18) says – in front of several of her friends and two of my fellow softball mom friends – “My mom is awesome. She’s mom of the year.”  I don’t recall the reason, but I have to assume I gave her money or something.  And while the compliment was nice, I was held to this high and very distinguished honor at all times.  Oh, the pressure!!!!

But the comment made me feel good.  Despite what everyone thinks, I try very hard to be a good mom. And I don’t think I’m terrible.  I don’t allow them to play in the road and I always make sure their dates will protect them from zombies should the zombie apocalypse occur during the date.  See, good parenting.

Then there are the other times. Like this week when I forgot that daughter #3 was going with a friend to the movies, and I didn’t tell her. Until said friend was knocking on the door.  Then there was the time that I almost forgot a girl at the babysitter house… I said almost!  Then there was the time that Daughter #2 had the misconception that her middle name contained two “L’s” rather than one.  And said daughter argued with me incessantly until I showed her the birth certificate – she was 14 when this discussion took place.  (I totally won that argument, by the way).

So I will continue to practice my mom-of-the-year quality parenting skills.  I hope by reading this post, you can glean some wonderful tips to use in your own family.