BAD MOMMY, GOOD MOMMY...NO WAIT, BAD MOMMY

On Monday, I broke a promise to my child. Before school in the morning, I told Hudson that after lunch and helping around the house a little bit in the afternoon, I'd let him go out and play in the snow. I didn't intend to, but it turns out I lied. When he got home from school, he had lunch and played a little bit on his DS. Then I made him help me go through his toys to add to our D.I. pile and then clean up his room. The latter two took way longer than expected and by the time we finished, it was dinner time. And too freaking cold and dark out for him to play. Bad mommy.

Yesterday I made up for my Monday misdeed. After I shoveled and snow-blowed the yard and got myself ready for the day, I bundled him up like the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man and sent him out into the snow. I even went out and helped him sled down the hill the first couple of times. Good Mommy.

After about 20 minutes of his playing outside, I heard Hudson calling me from the living room. I walked in to find him standing in the outside doorway. He said that he was cold and wanted to be done playing outside. I was really surprised but had him walk around to the garage so that I could de-marshmallow him. A little later, after Hudson had thawed and I had him and Claire all bathed and ready for the day, we got in the car to drive into the city to meet with a friend and her kids for lunch. As I headed down the hill, I looked at the outside temperature gauge. I immediately felt a tidal wave of guilt wash over me. A big, shiny green 19 was staring back at me. And this was a good 90 minutes after poor Hudson had been playing in the backyard. It had probably even warmed up a degree or two at this point. No wonder he was cold outside. Bad, bad mommy.