Forget about the mother-of-the-year award. Who needs one more things to dust and polish.
Today is all about Mothering Mishaps. Now, don’t you dare let me go on thinking I am the only mom who screws-up from time to time. You better commiserate in the comments, because I am about to make you feel much, much better about yourself and your mad parenting skills.
I haven’t slept very well for the last week and a half. I am blaming my coughing, hacking, spitting daughter. Her room is right across the hall from my own and the hall is eighteen inches wide. I hear every last bark in the night.
If these antibiotics don’t start working soon, I’m going to get my money back. Don’t even get me started on the three bottles of over-the-counter cough medicine sitting on the shelf in my kitchen. They are nearly useless, and the only reason they are not completely useless is because when I shove a spoonful of the slimy liquid down her throat, she makes the funniest faces. That’s gotta be worth something.
Tired moms do mixed-up things, especially early in the morning, and I have been tired.
I don’t function well before 9 A.M. I just heard the collective gasp of three thousand morning people. I didn’t realize there were that many of you.
Let me clear something up. I do function before 9 A.M. I just don’t do it well.
The other night I tossed and turned. I had a headache and a coughing child. Perhaps the two were related, but I am not about to place extra blame on the kid in pigtails. She’d tell her shrink on me one day, or worse, her blog readers.
Sometime in the wee hours of darkness, I fell asleep and started dreaming of strange and unusual things. I would tell you all about my dream, but I failed to write it down before coffee and after coffee, the world clears. I rub the sand from eyes and remember nothing from the hours of darkness.
While I was in this dream, I realized I overslept. I remember popping one eye open and looking at my alarm clock. It was three-quarters past the hour and I knew I was in big trouble. My son should have been awake and in the shower forty-five minutes ago. I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs. The house was dark.
Oh, I thought. I’m going to have to drive him to school. I was sure he’d miss the bus, but me driving before coffee can get a little tricky.
I threw his bedroom door open and said, “Hurry, we’re late. I overslept!”
My poor kid jumps up like there’s a fire in the house and I’m telling him to run for his life. That’s when I saw his clock.
4:47
Four o’clock in the morning! That’s really not even morning, it’s four o’clock in the middle of the night, and I just dragged my son out of bed.
Some days there is no wonder to my insanity.
“You know what? Go back to sleep for a few hours. I’ll see you at six.”
And I walked out the door and back up to bed.
See. You feel pretty darn good about yourself right now. Don’t you.
I suspect my son will be teasing me about this one for many, many years to come.
Your turn. How come you’re not getting that mother of the year award?
P.S. Now you understand why I had to make THESE.
Hilarious! But I definitely ruined my chances for any type of award ever tonight. My daughter is a senior and I went to her choir concert. When we were leaving, I got to speak to her for a minute and accused her of being high because her eyes were glossy. When she got home, I jumped on her with both feet again and she breaks down. She is boo-hooing and curls up on my lap like a baby. (Holy cow! What do I do now?)Very strange since she doesn’t even like me…One of her friends told her that an ex-beau had cheated on her while they were dating and she was heartbroken by this jerk-face all over again! What an idiot!!! No, not him…this chick. As far as I know, she hasn’t used drugs but I’m having severe anxiety from her leaving the nest and I’ve become stark raving mad. Do they make a medicine for mothers who have a baby girl graduating and leaving home?
Middlest came into my room in the wee hours of the morning, woke me out of a dead sleep, and told me that someone had peed in her bed. I don’t remember this part, but apparently I asked if it was her. She was offended. The culprit was the cat. I told her to sleep around it. Poor baby did. Ten years have passed and she has forgiven me.
Hahaa. Very funny! I had a weird dream the other night that I was living with Mariah Carey and her husband Nick. So strange!!
After raising 5 children I’m sure I have all of you beat in some fashion or another..I’ve done things like gotten parent-teacher conference nights mixed up, rushed home, cleaned up the kids only to arrive at the school and it’s Empty.. what else to do at that point, go to Chuckie Cheese!
LOL I’m feeling the commiserating love. I’m just coming down with that stuff. Let’s see. I left one of mine in the nursery at church once (honest Home-Alone mistake! We had 3 family cars there for Easter and I thought somebody else had her!) Forgot my son at Walmart (he was a 5′ 10″ 11-year old in the video game section) but remembered him before I left the parking lot. Somehow they turned out okay though… hang in there. Hope y’all kick the crud soon!
Oh, my. That’s what you call reason enough to disqualify you for the mother of the year award? Darling, you are a wonderful mother…my beautiful fifteen year old is in juvenile hall right now, and my own mother told me it was my fault. I almost believed her until I remembered that she was full of crap, and that none of the things wrong with me were her fault, right?
But seriously, my little one, who I am a very careful parent of, got her hand slapped the other day, for…hitting. Yep. Soon as the words “we don’t hit!” left my lips, I realized what an idiot I was. We all have off days, I guess.
I love the expression on his face in the picture you included! I am also not a morning person, and my kids wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 talking a mile a minute–sometimes I’m surprised they still call for grumpy old me. Let’s see…this isn’t even a morning thing, but I mis-read the school announcements last year and got a call mid-lunch to come pick up L. for early dismissal. Oops. Well, he HAD been asking to see what school aftercare was like, so he got his ten minutes to see! (He forgave me.) I also tend to hand my 7-year old son a sippy cup instead of giving it to his 3-year old sister at breakfast…oops.
We all, all, all have these experiences…I hope your daughter’s cough gets better soon! That’s rough on everyone, I know! Bear with me here, I’m not a doctor, but I do sleep next to one…have you ruled out bronchitis and pneumonia? Just a thought. My husband says that two weeks with a cough is still within normal range, unfortunately…hang in there!! And I hope you all get better sleep tonight! –Alison
Thank you. I took her to the doctors yesterday and she’s clear on the bronchitis. Hopefully this antibiotic will work soon.
I’ve forgotten my kid in school too. Once I forgot to go pick my daughter up from the bus. Yup. It’s a terrible thing to have a scatterbrained mother.
I can only think of the first time Matt & Meg woke me up at “o-dark-thirty” when I’d been working 11am-11pm for several days. It wasn’t pretty and let me tell you, they never did that again. There was no way they wanted to come face to face with the horrid hag in the back bedroom ever again. Hilarious in retrospect.
Ah Tricia motherhood has its own symbiotic relationship going on with all of us. Thank you for letting me know there are others who do these things. I’ve done the middle of the night lets get to work thing.You are the kind of mother who deserves special awards – the best awards. Imagine if your children had a dull Father knows best upbringing. Besides your occassional insanity keeps your guys on their toes!!
I am cracking up…you always do that to me! I am with you though. I am not your competition for the mother of the year award!
Oh that’s just too funny. I’m not a morning person either. I remember heaving a huge sigh of relief when my kids were old enough to get themselves out the door. I didn’t even feel guilty about it either.
You robbed your son of a couple hours of sleep, and I killed Santa Claus. I think I have you beat in the crappy mom department…. http://getwritedowntoit.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/i-accidentally-killed-santa-claus/
This is too funny! I am glad I will be there soon so I can laugh at (with) you!
Oh I absolutely commiserate +++++++++++++