This month’s topic for “How We” with Mix and Match Mama and A Little Bit Of Everything is “how we mom fail…and live to discuss .” I wasn’t going to write a post on this subject at first because I’ve never lost a child – although once Zachary thought we’d left him in a store so he left and we found him by the car – or caused a child to get hurt – although a few weeks back I told Zachary to stop cutting me off while walking and when he did it again (on purpose) I pushed him right over (by accident) – but then I realized I have plenty of these little stories that make me laugh now but were definitely mom fails when they happened. Let me start by saying if you have ever lost or hurt one of your kids, I’m not judging! These things happen, and sharing them and smiling about them is one way to move forward from our fails. Here are some of mine.
1. When Gabbie was a baby, she and Rudy (the dog) got locked in the car while it was running. The fire department had to come.
2. Zachary is the most unforgiving of my kids. When I neglected to tell him he could skip chess club to go to a 3 year old’s birthday party, he kept saying “why didn’t you tell me?” over and over and all I could say was “I made a mistake.”
3. Dave once forgot to buckle Simon into his car seat and didn’t know why he was crying and carrying on for a good 10 minutes. I wasn’t there, so dad fail, I guess! (He also once forgot to buckle Gabbie into her stroller when he picked her up at day care and she fell out!)
4. When Gabbie was in kindergarten she told me the next day was pajama day and I sent her to school in pajamas. It turns out pajama day was the following week.
5. I left my iPod charger plugged into my computer and Simon put it in his mouth. My computer was happy to inform me that he was an unrecognized device. He also put my iPod in his mouth and I had to have it replaced for water damage!
6. I pour the wrong cereals into the wrong bowls and give the kids the wrong snacks quite often. Surprisingly I’ve only put the wrong lunches into the wrong back packs twice that I know of.
7. Zachary probably needed naps more often than he got them – I have so many pictures of him sleeping in random places. Here’s a funny one:
8. Here’s one from my childhood – my brother asked my mom if he could color on the floor and she thought he was asking to sit on the floor and color – on paper. No, he meant literally could he color on the floor.
9. Did you ever put a diaper through the laundry? They explode! Luckily, the one that ended up in mine was unused.
10. Zachary once crawled under a table with a dog and the dog bit him. Luckily not badly!
11. Once I was eating a chocolate bar and Zachary asked me what I was eating. I told him it was nothing and he said, “I want nothing too!”
12. When we first moved to Kansas, Zachary kept throwing up everywhere. Every time I thought he was fine, he wasn’t. He even threw up in the office while we were signing the paperwork for our house.
13. Just this past weekend, Simon was telling us that he needed to memorize a list of Hebrew words and how to spell them. I told him he was wrong and the teacher would read out the words and they would have to write them down. Luckily I checked with the teacher – she did want them to memorize the list!
14. When Simon was little he got soaking wet at a spray park and I didn’t have a change of clothes for him. I drove home with him like this:
(He was wearing a diaper even though you can’t see it!)
If my kids complain that I did something wrong, I usually say something about how I’m the worst mom ever. They usually disagree. Then I feel bad for making them assuage my mom guilt! I think the best way to move on from your mom fails is to laugh about them. And if you’re in doubt about yourself, just remember your fails can’t be as bad as these.
What are some of your mom fail memories?