Never good enough

Why is it, that whatever I do or we have isn't good enough? As a mom, it seems that if I did it, made it, or bought it, it's never as good as someone else's mom's.

For example, the other night I finally sat down, after getting badgered about four days, and made my 6-year-old a Valentine's box for school. Although Valentine's Day is still a week away, she's been asking to have it done since the 1st of February. She's a Kindergartner and doesn't even know what a Valentine's box is but she had to have it done. So ... two nights ago, I spent an hour wrapping a shoe box with pretty silver paper and getting all the decorations ready for her to glue on. I thought it was a lovely box and she would like it, but no. She informs me that although it's nice, her friend's mom is making her child's box into a zebra where the Valentines drop into its mouth. Apparently just a plain wrapped box is boring. I tried to tell her that her box will probably be the shiniest and prettiest, but she was not appeased.

Anyways, then there's the whole snacks issue. It doesn't matter if I buy the latest, most expensive snack on the grocery shelf; it's never as good as their friend's snacks. Almost every time my kids go to someone else's house, they come back bragging about all the great snacks or how much food they had. Like our cupboards are bone bare and they're forced to eat a slice of white bread for their snack. I've even let my girls pick out these "amazing" snacks at the store and then one of two things happens -- either they wolf it all in one day, or they eat one and decide it's gross and the dogs eventually get them.

The same is true with cooking or baking. I don't profess to be a good cook or baker but even if I try extra hard, my girls are quick to inform me that So-and-So's mom puts chocolate kisses in her brownies or makes her pancakes from scratch with blackberries and homemade syrup. Or, her mom buys the expensive popsicles and not store brand, like ours. Or, my favorite, her mom buys the $12 six-pack of miniature green teas and lets her kids take them in their lunch. I guess their $3 10-pack of apple juice boxes are slime compared to the mini green teas.

I always tell my girls, when you have kids, you can go knock yourself out and buy them the fancy juices for 98 cents an ounce and make them the gourmet brownies with caramel and pecans, but as long as you're living here, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!

It's the same with clothes, shoes, our house, whatever they can think of to compare.

Oh, I've heard it all. "My friend's truck has satellite TV in it, why doesn't ours?" "She gets to go to the smoothie shop every day after school, why can't we?" "They get to go to Disney World every year and we've only been once." "The neighbors get to play outside til whenever they want and we have to come in at dark." And so and so on ... all these phrases stated with a whine, of course.

My poor kids, they're so deprived.

I just don't know how they survive each long, hard day having to have a lousy pudding cup and a glass of milk for their snack. Or be forced to bring a plain ol' square Valentines box, ride in a truck with no TV and come inside when the sun goes down. Oh the misery!