Category Archives: mistakes

Mom failure

Posted on by
inc.com

inc.com

Sometimes things happen that remind me of my lack of perfection as a mom.

I know it may come as a surprise, but I have been known to make mistakes. Just ask my 14 year old.

And even more surprising, sometimes things happen that force me to remember that even my kids aren’t perfect.

Such is the week I’ve had.

One  example…. I just had a birthday. My 40th. It’s one of those milestone birthdays, if you’re into paying attention to that sort of thing.

I found a post from my oldest on my Facebook page.

Happiest of birthdays to my beautiful momma!!! I really don’t know what I would do without you, you’ve been my best friend for 18 years (except from ages 11-12 when I was a total psychopath; sorry about that).. there’s no one else I would rather tickle until they collapse and cry, or lip sync Sky Full of Stars to until I give myself whiplash..thanks for being the best mom out there and I hope you have an amazingly wonderfully awesome-sauce day ❤❤❤❤❤

Rachel May's photo.
And so, there I was. Feeling pretty smug about the whole parenting thing. But how could I not??!  Here was proof of my success! She’s 18, a legal adult…. so I succeeded!!  I raised her to adulthood and she still loves me!!
Pretty great present.
And then….. later…. a text from the 14 year old.
I won’t show the text, as he would likely kill me for that…. but the gist of it was that he decided I was extremely selfish for going to a “random” kids birthday party and then off to babysit my nephew, because he had come home after football, and made time for me at that moment and I wasn’t there waiting for him. And I could find my present in the trash if I wanted to look for it.
Needless to say, a complete downward shift to the day….resulting in a lot of angry texting, and the realization that I am not a perfect mother…. not because I did anything wrong (I absolutely did not)… but because if I was truly a perfect mother, wouldn’t all of my kids always think so?
Oh… he’s going through the hormonal shift, and still sometimes seems to be dealing with some anger issues stemming from my divorce from his father. I know we love each other, and pray that one day he will be a bit more rational….but it’s still not easy to deal with.
And then… then, the icing on the cake!!
At the “random” birthday party for his classmate, a very precocious girl led Sammy away from the pack of children and proceeded to moon him. A couple parents saw this, it was over by the time I got to where he was. They said he didn’t seem  too impressed, and walked away.  I did find his little sister doing her best to pull her pants down though, and assumed she had to potty…..
Once I found out what happened, I talked to Sammy and told him if anyone does that he needs to walk away from them, and tell them it’s not nice. I really thought we were clear about this.
A couple days later, I was at the park with my two little ones, and a couple friends with their kids.
Two of the boys ran over, yelling “Sammy pulled his pants down!!”
What??!!  Not my perfect boy!  Surely, SURELY…he had mulch in his pants, or a bee……
I find him.
He looks guilty.
“did you pull your pants down?”
He did.
” Do you know why?”
He didn’t.
He did finally point out that he didn’t pull down his underwear, but clearly wasn’t ready for the repercussions beyond the initial shock value of his action. Seems the whole pants-dropping thing had made an impact on him after all. Clearly we had more to discuss….
He sulked in a tire swing the rest of the time, as the other parents laughed and told stories of things their own kids had done in the past.
So lessons this week for me in humility, patience, and proof that none of us are perfect.
But perfectly flawed maybe?
Advertisement

Sweet Succss!!

Posted on by

So I blogged about my daughters graduation invitations the other day.

It’s kind of funny. We got the invitations in the mail, super fast. It wasn’t until a few days later that someone was kind enough to tell me that I screwed them up.

Ironic, really. I am one of those people who can’t stand spelling mistakes, I always seem to find them. And yet, here is proof of my imperfect humanity.

How could I have missed this!!!!!

How could I have missed this!!!!!

My daughter graduated Summa Cum Laude, with a GPA over 4.3. I took full credit for this. Yet, I also now have to take full credit for telling the world that she succss!!!!

So I didn’t mail the invitations. Pondered what to do. Thought about sending them and hoping no one would notice. Couldn’t do it.

By the way, when I ordered these…I was forced to review the front and back of this invitation before I could finish, you have to click that you read and approve each side. I was so busy making sure I had spelled the back of it correctly, and worried about how to word the whole ‘me and the ex are throwing a party together’, I just didn’t pay enough attention to the front.

Well, I came up with a brilliant idea to save the day.

Labels!!! Because black permanent marker could not quite hide the fact that I was trying to cover something up, I decided to look into a sticker/label option.

Thank you vistaprint.com for also have extremely fast shipping, and adorable labels that can be personalized in any way a person could imagine.

A quick fix coupled with a little horn tooting...

A quick fix coupled with a little horn tooting…

So, I did think of another suggestion for cardstore.com, to make the experience there even more meaningful…..spellcheck!!!   You just can’t trust us to catch our own mistakes. 🙂

Car Krash Karma

Posted on by
How I feel...... thetimes.co.uk

How I feel……
thetimes.co.uk

I recently posted about the naïve stupidity of my little sister, accepting rides from shady strangers in New York.

I thought I was the smart(er) sister, when it comes to things like safety….common sense….avoiding risk.

I was wrong.

Karma came and kicked me in the face today. But I don’t blame Karma, I blame myself, and as I “punished” my sister by blogging about her lack of judgment, I am punishing myself now by blogging about my own-even worse-mistake.

What kind of mistake?

The kind of mistake that happens when you for some reason are exhausted at the end of the day, and find yourself literally slapping yourself in the face to stay awake as you drive home. The kind of mistake that finds you on your street, mere houses away from the safety of your garage when you suddenly find yourself WAKING UP as you drive into a pole. Rather, as I drive into a pole, on a tree lawn, down the street from my home.

like this

like this

It was not a huge pole, nothing like telephone pole size. It was a black street light. The slow motion that happens when you find yourself facing a sure collision allowed me to see it, and hear it’s gentle, almost eggshell-like crunch as I destroyed it. There was no sensation of force, it literally just folded on contact. As did the corner of my car.

That woke me up.

To the reality of what COULD have happened had there been a car around that curve in the road instead of a light. Or a child playing. My OWN little ones were in the back seat, completely unaware somehow of what had just occurred.

So I find myself painfully awake and aware of what just occurred, and it’s amazing how quiet the street is around me. How can it be no one saw this? Acutely embarrassed, I backed off the pole-now under my car, and was thankfully able to drive the short distance to my home.

I went through the initial panic of not knowing who to call first, but settled on the police, sure I just destroyed city property and wanting to make sure I called before someone else called on me. They were nice, sent an officer to the house within 20 minutes. His first question? Was I texting? NO! Thank god, because I know I couldn’t have lied. I already considered using the deer always around our street as an excuse, but knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it together. My Catholic guilt has always served me well.

It was bad enough that I gave him a name and a face for the cliché “typical female driver”.

Some more questions, lots of raised eyebrows…. I was given a citation with a nice fine for failing to control my vehicle. I can contest it in court if I want next month…pretty sure I won’t be doing that. I’m allowed to pay the fine without appearing there.

On to the husband, the insurance company, the repair guy, a cop friend. With each call, and each persons kindness, I actually felt worse. I’m a dangerous driver!  Equal parts humiliation and disappointment in myself. How can these people tell me to relax, it’s just an accident!?

I understand that accidents happen. But the what if’s….. they are killing me. How could I have allowed that to happen?

Maybe I could blame it on the 2 year old who kept me up last night, or maybe the babysitter who doesn’t drive, requiring me to take her home each day. But the blame is mine.  I KNEW I was so tired driving home, hence the face slapping. I think I just finally relaxed too much, literally on that final stretch…

I SHOULD have stayed fully aware and awake. I can’t believe I didn’t. Thankfully the damage to property and my vehicle is repairable, I could not have lived with myself had I hurt another person.

I’m left to figure out who I need to talk to about the street light, resting right now on the ground in the dark. I hate the thought of driving my very visibly damaged car, giving pause to anyone who will see it to wonder what in the world did she DO?! My 4 year old thought I was going to jail today, as he watched the officer taking pictures of my car. My oldest watched me sit on the floor and cry after he left, so upset with myself.

I am not feeling very confident right now. Not feeling like a great role model, and definitely not feeling like I have room to lecture anyone else about poor judgment.