We're Crappy Parents

I feel the need to fess up.  I need to clear my conscience.  I've been a crappy parent.  Someone else who lives in my house has been a crappy parent too, but I don't want to name names or point fingers.  I'll let you put your P.I. hat on and figure that one out.

Now, we have not been CONSISTENTLY crappy.  We've just had some seriously crappy moments that have been rather defining at times.

I started thinking about these last Thursday on the way to Allie's swim lessons.  She had big band-aids on both of her knees and and looked like she had been dragged down the street or something.  Scrapes and contusions all over her little legs.  Apparently she was very excited to run down the driveway and meet the damn ice cream man with his pain in the ass truck that kids can hear from miles away.  She fell down and injuries were sustained.

These injuries were beyond the capabilities of Doc McStuffins or Hello Kitty Band-Aids.  We needed real plain old flesh colored bandages.  You know....the ones intended for actual injuries; not the "I just bumped my pinky toe into the cushioned couch while chasing the cat and I need a band-aid stat or I'll keep crying dramatically" injuries.

I should probably go back to the previous swim lesson first.  I was running around like a maniac to get home in time for her lesson and dashed over to my mom's to pick her up.  Super Prepared Nana had her in her little "swim costume" (thank you Peppa Pig) and all sun screened up.  As I'm putting Allie in the car, she sees a can of spray sunscreen and picks it up.  I take it from her, check to make sure that it's twisted to the "closed" position, and hand it back to her.  Handed. It. Back. To. Her.

Because that's what good parents do.  They give spray cans to toddlers to play with.  They don't think that maybe the toddler just watched them twist the cap and might try to do it too.

PSSSSSSSHHHHHHHT!   (insert bloody murder scream here)

Yes.  I wasn't even out of the driveway and my child had sprayed herself in the eyes.  I actually said out loud to myself, "What in the hell is wrong with you, you idiot!!!"  Blinded, my little girl thought I was talking to her.  "I'm not an IDIOT, mommy!!!"  Excellent.  I've injured, insulted and pissed my kid off in less that 60 seconds.

Fortunately we were able to run back into Nana and PopPop's and remedy this problem.  And my little trooper even volunteered to go back to lessons.  When we pulled in, I explained why we were late by saying, "I blinded my child with spray sunscreen.  I had to collect my Shittiest Parent In the World trophy.  I'm sorry we're late."  (Fortunately, one lifeguard had a parent forget their kid at camp, so that overshadowed my stupidity.)

So, two days later we walk into lessons and Allie is scraped and cut and bleeding and bandaged.  The two teachers looked at me and asked, "What the hell happened this time?!"  "Do we need to call DYFS??"  (Every parent's least favorite sarcastic joke.)  I told them the story and they just laughed and got in the pool.  Apparently no one forgot their kid at camp that day, so no parental sympathy was offered.  The initial screams as the chlorinated water hit the fresh wounds didn't help either.  My poor baby!

We had a lovely time tho!  My little peanut is becoming quite the little water bug:

Mommy and Me Swimming Lessons - she's quite eager to get swimming!

Practicing the Off The Wall Torpedo..... for the seven millionth time.

One of the few times she let me hold her.  She'd rather swim around on her own like a frog.

This week of parental debacles has reminded me of all of the screw-ups we've had in Allie's 3.5 years.   We're both blonde, so you can only imagine how many there have been!

The most popular one, which still occurs from time to time, was forgetting the diaper bag.  We would get into the car and travel at least 20 minutes away when it would hit one of us.  "Did you grab the diaper bag?"  "No!  I thought YOU were grabbing it!"

Anyone with an infant knows you can't leave for more than an hour without the bag.  Diapers, formula, burping cloths, bib, emergency change of clothes, wipes, boogie wipes, snot sucker, an extra bottle, sunscreen, back up binky, toys that they won't use, a stuffed something, etc.  After an hour, if you haven't needed one of those things already, you will definitely need one or two at that point.

We've had to buy prepared formula, wipes and packages of diapers more times that I can remember.  We even bought a bag for each car.  Yet, somehow, at some point, we'd find ourselves away from home looking for the bag only to discover that ALL of the bags were in the house to have supplies "replenished".   We've even done it two days in a row!   The people at Babies R Us would laugh when they saw us coming.  We'd make the "we forgot the bag again" announcement as we hustled to the back of the store and they would laugh.  Lovely.

Now there are food and drinks and emergency change of clothes and portable toilet pads in that bag..... and we still manage to leave without it almost every other time.  Sonofabitch!  It never fails.  And when we do have it, the food is never right.

"Mommy, can I have food?"

"Sure honey.  What do you want?"

"Whatever you give me will be fine." (Yes, she actually says that, but it's usually a lie.)

I dig thru the bag calling out inventory, "Animal crackers, pretzels, teddy grahams, a banana, food  pouches, fruit snacks..."

"Fruit snack!!"  Of course.  She wants the least healthy thing in the bag.

"Okay, baby.  Here you go!"  I turn around and hand it to her, only to see the look of disappointment.

"I don't like that kind," she says as she wrinkles up her nose.

"That's all I have, Allie.  You eat them every day.  You definitely like them."

"I only like Auntie Trish fruit snacks!"  She folds her arms and turns her head away.

(Side note:  In case you're wondering, ur friend neighbor fitness pro gave her one bag of Mott's fruit snacks over a year ago and they have been  Auntie Trish Fruit Snacks ever since...... except for when she couldn't say her "r"s.  Then they were Auntie Tish or Auntie Twish Fruit Snacks.)

"Okay.  Fine," I say defeated and turn back around.  "Why do we even bring this thing?  She never wants what's in there."

Justin answers, "Because we fucked up and didn't forget it at home."

God bless him.  He's got an answer for everything!

"Well I might as well go to sleep if there's no food!  I wish they had forgotten the stupid thing at home."

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!

Pain....and Forgetting A Witty Title

I had a completely different entry ready to go, but I need to put it on the back burner to address my current situation.  And this should be fun because I'm all boogered up on Percoset right now so who knows what this will look like tomorrow.

I'm annoyed by my stupidity.  I'm more annoyed by my ankle weakness.....or as the medical peeps call it "chronic ankle instability".  I've got two things on this body that are thin..... my wrists and my ankles. It seems as though my ankles will go to extremes to try to join the club that the chubby body parts are in.  They have a direct link to the part of my brain that is responsible for stupid decisions, which is how they manage to make it to the "chubby side" from time to time.

On Wednesday evening I was playing Hide and Go Seek with Miss Alliepants.  I was the hider and she was the seeker.  The problem is that she's an extremely fast counter.  She went into the bathroom to count and it sounded like this "One....two.....tree......fourfivesixsebeneightnineTEN!  Ready not here I come!"  As soon as the counting commenced, I started hauling ass to find a hiding spot.

Somewhere around "seben", I leaped into the air and everything went south.

Sadie was laying in my path.  She was sprawled out on her side and I would've sworn she was asleep.  Rather than run around her, I thought I'd hurdle over the dog.  Right after my launch, Sadie's Spidey-Senses kicked in and she jumped up.  My left foot hooked onto her back and I landed on my right ankle.  And just to confirm the decision that I should've picked another route, I went flying head first into the front door.  There should've been a Vicki-shaped hole there.

I rolled around on the floor holding my ankle with one hand and my head with another.  Allie came running over yelling, "I find you!  I find you!"  After assessing my actions, she asked, "Why Mommy laughing so hard?" 

Somehow I spit out, "Mommy isn't laughing.  I hurt myself."  It was like someone flipped a switch and suddenly she was standing over me crying, too.

I'll save the rest of the drama and summarize it by saying that when Justin got home I was sitting on the couch with an ice pack, trying to entertain Allie from the couch, and my ankle looked like it was replaced by a tennis ball.

I am a self professed spazz.  When I fall or crash into things, I do it in a big way.  About 8 years ago I spent two summer months with a cast on my ankle from twisting it three times.  Three times.  To make matters worse, I also had a shitload of worn out left shoes and matching brand new right shoes.... and you KNOW how I feel about shoes!  True to form, I have accomplished ultimate spazzdom once again, trying to hurdle my dog while playing with a two year old.

Later that night, I took a Percoset on Justin's urging.  Between the crying and bitchiness ("How will I do my job!?  Don't tell me not to worry!  You think you have this all figured out, don't you?!") I think he was pretty desperate to "lighten my mood".  It lightened my mood alright.  My mom had to drive me to my late night appointment because operating a vehicle sounded a bit too complicated.  I spent an inordinate amount of time imitating my daughter's speech patterns.  Asking my husband what he was doing every three minutes seemed entertaining, especially when I incorporated the previously mentioned bit of silliness every sixty seconds by saying, "Allie....what Daddy have?"

Silliness gave way to nausea, dizziness and itchiness.  I started to feel like a junkie.  At 3am I was scratching things that never itched before, like my eye lids and underneath my fingernails.  And I really couldn't believe that I had skin left the next morning.  I expected to wake up looking like I had a serious case of road rash all over my body.  Nope!  I was fine.

Well, tonight things are worse.  I have oodles of pain and no silliness.  Even the little dog feels bad for me..... and she can't stand me.  I'm on my second Percoset in two hours and I'm going to wrap this up because I keep forgetting my point and the scratching is interfering with my typing.  My palms are even itchy.  My apologies for this aimless rant.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better.....or at least have a doctor's opinion as to why I don't.  I'm aiming for the first one. Wish me luck.