When its time to grow up - or maybe not

I may be in my 40's, but I am sure, like many of you, I don't feel like I have ever grown up.  This is currently exacerbated by the fact that my Mom is coming to stay with us.  Somehow with her in the house I always feel like I am a teenager again.  Like I have to justify what I am doing and sneak around a little.
Don't get me wrong, my Mom is great, she is easy to live with and doesn't pass judgement (much), but I know it's still going to be an adjustment for me and for her having her living here.

At the moment, I have three days until she arrives, I am cleaning my house.  She told me not to be silly when I said I had to clean before she arrives, but trust me she has not seen my house!  She used to tell me my bedroom looked like a pig sty and in reality, what kid has not heard that line?  However now I'm an adult (I think) and add in two eight year olds, and my entire house looks like a pig sty.  Clean as I may, I cannot seem to get the kids to pick up after themselves, not leave their garbage where ever it falls and stop leaving socks lying in arbitrary places throughout the house.

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A few days later....

Yes I got sidetracked, we had a lot of things happen that derailed my blog post, so now my Mom has been here for nearly 3 days and we are adjusting.  The kids are loving having her here. They have been on their best behavior and she in turn adores them.

I have only felt like a kid a few times, most notably when I told one of the kids to do something and she added afterwards a very pointed...."please??"  I countered with telling her it was a command, not a request.
In her favor, she has praised my child handling skills,...saying she loves the way I talk to the kids, and the tone I use with them.  From my side I think, great I'm glad she's praising not criticizing, but she hasn't been around long enough to see me lose my cool with them yet, so that will come.

The thing is there comes a point in your life when you are not sure if you are the adult or the child in the relationship. I still feel like the child, but find myself taking the adult role, guidance, checking up on things, doing all the organizing and also doing things like double checking her room and picking up pill packets that she's dropped on the floor so that the monster dog does not eat her blood pressure tablets   I guess it's a complicated stage of life for all.


  I was choosing a picture for the blog this week relating to being grown up, and there were just too many, so I found I could not just go with one...I thought perhaps even an explanation with some may be a good idea.

DH will attest to this one, the dishwasher has to be stacked my way.  It makes the most sense, you can fit everything in it, best use of space and most economical - there, doesn't that sound grown up? If someone else stacks it there are always dishes left over in the sink and who has to wash them...yes that would be me, the grown up in the house.

Yes, I'm guilty as charged of telling my kids lies like this to get them to stop asking questions and just accept what I have told them as the truth.

Well this describes me perfectly.  I don't think I'll ever feel totally grown up and then I look what I do all day and think, wow, they really should have a grown up doing this.  I am sure they would do a much better job....

Well yes, I wont go into details with all the cringe worthy things I do, but some days (okay, most days) I seriously question my grown up judgement.  I suspect that perhaps my inner teenage girl is lurking a little too close to the surface. But then, is that a bad thing?  I can hope that maybe when I am in my 60's I will still be thinking that my inner teenager is there and still doing stupid things that make me feel young again ;)