Tessa’s Top Three Mom-Fails

Most days I feel pretty good about the job I’m doing as a parent.  My heart knows that these are adorable people who will soon be contributing members of the society, but my head makes me take notice of the times when I feel like I fail. I mean, I feel like I fail BIG. I know I’m not alone, and as I get older, I’ve stopped being so hard on myself. However, I have three mom-fails that haunt me.

Getting Pulled Over in Front of my Kids

It was one of those spring mornings that should have gone smoothly. I remember there was still a chill in the air, but the sun was promising a great day. The children and I piled into our Ford Freestyle and set off for my boys’ swimming lessons. We were running late, because although I can pull off five days in a row of being on time to daycare and work, pushing it to Saturday was just too much. Since we were running late, my speedometer may have read about five (okay maybe ten) over the exit ramp’s speed limit. It didn’t matter to me. I was getting them to swimming lessons on time if it was the last thing I did.

Just as I was getting to another exit, I happened to looked up into the eyes of a friendly police officer holding a speed gun. He and his counterparts turned on their lights. This, of course, was terrifying to my then 6 and 4-year-olds. In their minds, only convicts had police lights after them. Only felons were asked for their license and registration.

I looked back into my oldest’s eyes and could tell he was asking himself, ‘Is my mommy a criminal?‘”

Meanwhile, I was justifying my speed in my head by comparing it to my excellent parenting. We are not a family who is late to our obligations. We’re on time. It didn’t matter how I got there, but if we were on time, I win at motherhood, right? Wrong. A STOP class was all I needed to re-learn how dangerous my actions were. But that STOP class was nothing compared to the MONTHLY reminder my kids still give me from the back seat. “Mommy, remember that one time you got pulled over?” And you know what else? Even after the speed stop, we were still on time to swimming lessons. 

Mistaking Appendicitis for Too Many Brownies

Another occasion that caused me major mom-guilt was my middle son’s appendicitis. He went to bed the night before “the incident” with a tummy ache. We had a fun Halloween party that evening, and I assumed he ate too many brownies. (He has a reputation for that.) When he woke up in the same painful state as he went to bed, I scolded him.

Buddy, you have a football game today. You cannot let your team down because of a brownie tummy.” 

I tried to cleanse his toxic tummy with fruit and protein. Like a good mom does. He maintained this tummy ache all day, and missed his game. 

It wasn’t until later that my husband mentioned appendicitis. He had been contacting doctor Google all day, and explained that the signs matched up. (Ex: Constant pain on one side. It becomes sharper after you push on it and release, etc.) 

This was such a role reversal. I was always the one who needed to be talked off of the “Emergency Room” ledge. Here, my husband was falling for a gassy tummy routine. Just to make him feel better (and because I was also getting a little worried by this point), I volunteered to take my guy to the Urgent Care since it was Sunday. (Did I mention my kids only get sick or hurt on weekends and holidays?) Thinking I’d be right back, I was totally unprepared for the two emergency rooms, one surgery, and three days of recovery that were to come. 

My poor baby had appendicitis, and thanks to his father, we got him help in time. My son is the sweetest person, and he never rubs it in that I told him to “Suck it up.” Mom. Fail.

Missing Kindergarten Round-up

For some reason the speeding ticket and even the appendicitis don’t feel as bad as my major mom fail of missing my kiddo’s Kindergarten round-up. Like most moms, I’m on the move and I rarely sit down to evaluate the coming months. I told myself that Kindergarten round-up was in May. I was so sure of it because my older son’s K-round-up had been in May. Nope, not the case.

The day of the missed Kindergarten round-up, I dropped everyone off at their places, and I went to work. Just like every other day. It wasn’t until my bestie called me at 3:30 and told me I had missed it that I realized what had happened. I have never felt so guilty in my entire life. Here was one of the biggest milestones and I MISSED IT. This was surely going to thrust him into a life of crime, and he would write full books about how his mom failed to take him to KRU, and therefore, propelled him into life-long dissatisfaction.

Like all tragedies, I remember where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt the moment I learned it had come and gone.

Two weeks later, when I was able to really think about it, I realized that the morning we spent in roundup was not really ever that big of a deal. Sure my oldest had fun, but it was mostly for the parents to ask questions and get a tour. Since I had already done those things, I wasn’t missing anything super special. To make up for it, my husband and I took him to a pizza arcade and invited a couple of his friends. We celebrated the introduction to Kindergarten in style, and when fall came, he was none-the-wiser. It was actually a good mom-fail, I learned to pay better attention to school newsletters from then on, and I also learned that this wasn’t a tragedy.

 

Most of our lives as moms can be spent comparing ourselves to the perfection we see on social media sites and other crevices of the internet. I understand these three moments were not my best, but my kids know I love them, and that’s all that matters…right?

What are your fails? We’d love to know we’re not alone!