Friday, January 23, 2009

Bad Mom Moment

I've been feeling the need to update this blog with something besides the rather boring news about fabric and baby blankets. However, since my life has lately consisted only of nursing, cleaning the SAME messes up over and over again, and only occasionally interrupting these two activities with such exciting adventures as "jackhammering monsters" and "hiding from weasels," I have nothing recent to write about. So I thought I'd write about a very blog worthy event that happened some time ago - around about the time I started this blog: my worst mom moment.

Moses was probably about 2 and still sleeping in his crib. He had just entered the phase that you all know about - the phase of prolonging bed time as long as humanly possible. Every night he couldn't go to sleep for one or more of the following reasons "I need another song," "I need a drink of water," "I need another hug," "I had a bad dream" (while awake, nonetheless!), and my personal favorite: "something's boddering me."

Brett was out for the evening and I had finally given Moses one last drink, hug, and song, and assured him I would not come into his room again until morning. About 10 minutes later I heard him start whining: "I need a hug..." Resisting my motherly urge to give in, I steeled myself and went about my business. I cleaned the kitchen and started sewing, all to choruses of "I need a hug," which continued to emanate from the bedroom. I kept telling myself to hold strong - I just had to be more stubborn than him and eventually he would learn that he couldn't manipulate me into coming back into that bedroom. I had already given him about 10 hugs and he was only saying this because he didn't want to go to sleep. After about 15 minutes, however, I was feeling frazzled. "I need a hug. I need a hug. I need a hug!" I couldn't stand it any more. I went to the bedroom door and paused to collect myself and figure out how I was going to handle the situation. As I stood there I managed to get one last really good listen to what my son was saying: "MY KNEE IS STUCK!"

In my defense, those two phrases sound really similar when said out loud through a wooden door. Try it - you might feel a little less disgusted with me.

I ran into the room, and sure enough, his leg was jammed between the crib slats. It was so stuck, in fact, that I had to get into the crib myself and bodily pry the two slats apart before freeing his leg. I felt terrible. I still feel terrible. Actually, I'm not sure why I just retold that story. I'd love to hear your bad mom moments - maybe they'll make me feel better!

4 comments:

Missie Krissie said...

Ha ha! That was hilarious! Everyone has those moments and they are not to be ashamed of, they are simply part of being a parent. I haven't got one that good (yet) but I will tell you about a friend of mine. Her son kept telling her he had a 'bell' in his ear. She thought he meant a 'ringing' noise in his ears. So she let it go for a week or so to see if it would just go away. But he was still complaining about it so she took him to the doctor... where they extracted a tiny craft bell from his ear! :) So he had been right all along!

Suzanne said...

Although I know you feel terrible, we all have those moments. In fact, I have so many, it's hard to pick one. But I guess the one that I feel most badly about is when Jachin (my oldest) was about a month old. I left him naked on the changing table to get something from the bathroom. Because at a month old, they can't roll off yet, right?? But he was screaming and crying so hard, kicking his legs, that he actually pushed himself off the changing table. I returned to his bedroom to find him face-down, naked, crying into the carpet. It was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. And I felt HORRIBLE. I picked him up and I don't think I put him down for the rest of the day. I just rocked him and apologized over and over.

But trust me, there have been many more situations of bad parenting since then.

emgray said...

So funny! Yes, we all have our stories. Here is just one story of many I could share: I went to the park with my 3 older kids and a friend and her kids. We left our husbands at home watching a football game. About an hour later our husbands joined us at the park and played with the kids while I chatted with my girlfriend. THIRTY minutes later I bolted up in a panic yelling "Where's the baby!?!" My wonderful husband forgot she was napping and left her at home and it took me 30 minutes to notice! Mom of the year.

Jen Mc. said...

Man, you ladies are making me SO glad that I've never done anything wrong as a parent!

(Kidding, of course. I have tons of stories. But I don't feel like thinking about them!).

Kev was pretty embarrassed by Elle's fall down the stairs in front of a bunch of ladies the other night, though! Ha!!

And Heather, this is a hilarious rendition!