Mother tries to know best

I am not the best mom I know. I am not even close to the kind of mom I want to be. But then, I realize that some (most?) moms probably feel the same way. Still, it's not always easy to know when to put your foot down, and when to let things slide.
Athena had state testing this week, and so she wore slippers to school. Really? Slippers? But I just rolled my eyes and let her go, because, really is that something to fight about?
Paris wore an Ace bandage around his ankle on Monday. Why? " I hurt myself," he said. And when I challenged him, he amended it to, "I have a mosquito bite that I don't want to itch." I suggested he just put a band-aid on it, but he seemed to think a whole Ace bandage would work better. Fine. Whatever.
Of course, then I found out that he was telling everyone at school that he was playing around when some friends of ours were leaving and they accidentally hit his ankle with their car(yes, that would be you Jess). There are some pretty obvious flaws in that story, but he pointed out that when you unwrap it, the bandage leaves an impression that can look like tire marks. Apparently, there have been a lot of accidents in the 4th grade and Paris was feeling left out. We talked about being liked for who you are, and the importance of not lying, and the long and short of it was he didn't wear the bandage again.
Tritan's teacher sent home a PG version of Gladiator for me to preview and (hopefully) give my consent for him to watch it. This is the same teacher who wanted to show a PG-13 version of 300 (that I just said no to). I watched about 45 min. of this movie, and I admit that somehow they made the opening fight scene about as gruesome as a Narnia movie (which was really incredible, seeing how I've read the original fight scene was pretty bad). I'm sure if I had compared the two movies I would have found that most of the blood and guts and sex scenes were edited out, so technically it's a PG movie. Thing is, when a film maker makes an R-rated film, he makes it for adults, not children. So the themes, intensity, and plot are all more than a 12-year-old can handle (I think). For instance, the son of Caesar kills his father when he threatens to hand over the government to Maximus. I don't think a 12-year-old needs to see that, blood or no blood. And then, Maximus escapes execution, and is returning home to see his beloved wife and son, when they show the soldiers riding up to kill the son and wife. Of course, the son runs out to greet the soldiers because he thinks his father is among them, but no, they are there to kill him. OK enough. I turned it off. I can't even handle that kind of sadness. I know I'm a dork, but if I can't handle it, I can guarantee you Tritan won't enjoy it. He doesn't even like it when parents yell in movies.
So I had to say no. Which I'm sure the teacher is rolling her eyes about. And maybe now the whole class won't be able to watch it (because with the 300 movie, if one parent said no, no one got to watch it). I do feel bad since she is trying so hard to make ancient history interesting for 6th graders, and I'm sure she feels she is doing her best to acquiesce to us overprotective moms, but I mean, Maximus isn't even a real person. And historically, Commodus didn't murder his father; he died of the plague and the murder story was made up later to justify overthrowing Commodus later.
Ah, well. I may not serve warm breakfasts or limit computer usage as much as I should, but I am trying. Hopefully, the kids will understand when they're my age (that's why I'm writing it down now).