What Do You Mean, "Mean?"

Credit to Adam Zyglis for this realistic depiction of mean moms everywhere.

Apparently I'm the meanest mother to ever walk the face of the earth. My boys are so abused that it's a wonder they function normally - at least according to them, and their latest (irritating) phase: "You're mean!"
Even the baby, in his two years of infinite life experience, has deemed me as such.

I hear it at least twenty times a day, and that's absolutely no exaggeration. We're out of fruit snacks? I'm mean. They have to wear pants to go outside? I'm mean. They can't make the dogs "cereal" by floating kibbles of dog food in the water bowl? I'm mean.

I understand that they get all pissed off when they can't stay up past their bedtime, or have dessert without touching their dinner, or eat four popsicles in a row. I get it. That's the injustice of being a kid, and I clearly remember being just as miffed at my mom when she vetoed certain activities. I guess when you've never seen true meanness, those are the types of things that seem horribly unfair.

But.

When it rained the other day? I was mean. My rampant "meanness" gets blamed for a ridiculous variety of things. I had to wake the baby up from his nap in order to make it to pick Colin up from school on time - and what did Coby say? In his sleepiest voice, eyes barely open: "You're mean."

Seriously?

I suppose I should be thankful that my kids have little to no experience with honest-to-goodness mean behavior at this point. But y'all? If they keep this persistent "you're mean" business up for much longer, I may actually prove them right.