Mother of the Year

Nothing robs you of complete rationality and any previous education like giving birth does. I have learned this in the past nine months in some severely self esteem lowering ways. 

This brings me to my latest parenting epic fail. 

I want to make it clear to everyone that I am not as stupid as I come across in some of my blogs, or all of them. I really do have a lot of common sense and can be very handy in emergency situations, provided they do not have anything to do with my immediate family. The other day though, I had a brief lapse in judgement that will now result in a phone call from my mother, as well as a collective head shake from all the good mothers who read my blog and use it as a guide to know how not to raise their child. 

I was taking Avery out to the museum the other day while Brad was at work, something that we like to do every couple of weeks. I was giving myself a mental pat on the back because I was doing such a great job culturing my nine month old. Surely all this time spent looking at artifacts and paintings, paired with her music classes and eventual dance classes would turn her into an artistic genius. A famous writer, or the next Picasso or Van Gogh perhaps? 

As I was loading her stroller into the trunk of my Versa and simultaneously deciding how much I would sell her childhood finger paintings for when she became famous, I heard thump and then the ensuing cry. Nothing good could come from this. 

When I turned around, what I saw was something that I'm sure no good mother has ever seen before. Avery was face down on our front veranda, arms sprawled all over the place, and both of her legs and her little bum still in the front porch. 

Excellent. 

At this point, I was at a crossroads. It was extremely difficult to prioritize between a) retrieving my child, and b) ensuring that no one in the neighborhood had seen my child literally fall out of my house secondary to my terrible parenting skills. 

I know what all you judgey mothers are thinking; you're thinking, "Who the f*ck leaves the front door open with a crawling child inside?"

I do. That's who. 

My thought process at the time was that if she could see me, she wouldn't have a mental breakdown and sob uncontrollably for however long it took me to wrestle the stroller into my hatchbacked mom car. 

Luckily I'm pretty good at multitasking, unless you're trying to have a conversation with me while I'm texting, and so I was able to scoop Avery up nonchalantly and stealthily comfort her while simultaneously pretending nothing happened and glancing around to ensure that some sort of Child Youth and Family Services ghost car hadn't fired up its lights and performed a dramatic hand-brake turn into my driveway so as to seize my child. 

Fortunately, Avery survived unscathed, and seemed more embarrassed about falling and even a little miffed at me for allowing such a stupid thing to happen. Fair enough, guilty as charged. She stopped crying immediately on being picked up but gave me a stern look while being strapped in her car seat. I deserved it. 


I was so embarrassed that I never even so much as told my husband about our little incident, but by the end of the week I decided to hell with it, I'll make it known on the internet. That's right, world. I'm a poor decision maker sometimes when it comes to my child, or my life in general. 

This may be the first, but I'm certain it won't be the last absolutely terrible parenting decision I make in my child rearing career. I can only hope that there are a handful of you out there who can relate! If so, leave a comment below! ;)

"Try that again, Mom. I dare ya. "