My 5 Worst Parenting Fails Which Don’t Even Matter

Big family little income SmarTrike-1
This confessional post is rather pleasingly & obviously sponsored by smarTrike, and there’s even a competition at the bottom giving you the chance to win one!

We fight in front of our kids. Swear in front of our kids. We give them cheese toasties for dinner. And while we haven’t tossed them roughly to the floor, we have accidentally allowed them to drop off change tables and beds. We’ve also delivered them late to school because we slept in, and forgotten to pick them up from school because we were doing important stuff, like watching movies.

And those aren’t even the worst things we’ve done!

So when it comes to parenting, we have guilt.

In fact, a recent survey over of 1000 parents was commissioned by smarTrike and found 60% of parents admitted when it comes to parenting they feel more pressure from themselves than anyone else, with only one in ten rating themselves a 9/10 or 10/10 as a parent.

So in the interests of making you feel better about yourself, here are my most guilt-ridden parenting fails:

  1. PoisonUsually food doesn’t get a chance to go off in our fridge because there’s so many of us vying for the leftovers. So when one of our kids asked if he could finish off the salsa we were so surprised we had some in the house we didn’t think to work out when it was left over from. Until the doctor started asking us questions.
  1.  WaterRather than bore you with every single time one of our kids has started to drown right next to us, I’ll tell you the worst. The best thing about taking the kids to a certain resort on the Coast is their water park which also has a lifesaver watching over the kids. The worst thing is when you’re distracting the lifesaver with your amusing stories while your kid starts drowning behind the two of you.
  1. Bones. We always attempt to ignore our kids when they’ve hurt themselves in the hope they’ll learn to stop whinging at us. Which has never worked. One time it didn’t work was when Miss12 told us she’d broken her leg at the park and, assuming she’d only given herself a bit of a bump, we suggested she walk it off.  She went down like a sack of shit, which was exactly how we felt at the hospital when they located the break in an X-ray.
  1. CarsIt’s so easy to forget there’s a kid in the backseat once they fall asleep. We know because we’ve done it. Fortunately we realised once we got inside and neither of us needed to race off to change a nappy.
  1. Nuts. We’ve given peanut butter to an anaphylactic. Just a little bit. It was enough to have us bypass the waiting area at the hospital emergency though. “Didn’t you know he was anaphylactic?” the nurse asked us. We had to confess we did, but I had a really good reason for the slip up. I hadn’t had a coffee yet.

And in case you’re thinking we’re horrible parents and are considering calling DOCS I should confess I took a bit of license with these stories. That being the we in every single case should actually be a me.

But, because Tracey and I are a team, I’ve decided I’m taking her down with me.

Still, at the end of the day we can’t have done too bad. We have one adult kid with two degrees and all his fingers, and another who has just started her own little family – so despite still being completely crap at this parenting caper I’m hopeful for the five remaining kids.

As any parent will attest, we can all find something to feel guilty about when it comes to our kids. I prefer to focus on the positive. All that really matters is you love them and let them know it, and get incredibly lucky when you really stuff up. So long as home is their safe place, you’re all good.

So with that in mind, maybe avoid holding on to the jar of salsa if you don’t finish it.

smarTrike

This post is sponsored by smarTrike 5-in-1, a truly nifty idea which allows you to ‘lead from behind’, allowing your kid to explore independently. With this beauty you no longer have to feel guilty about not taking the kids for walks or to zoos and theme parks because it all seems too hard – suddenly it’s all too easy.

Plus, you and your kid will love your smarTrike because it rather cleverly converts to their first trike! Finally, something relating to your kids you don’t have to feel guilty about!

What’s more, the smarTrike people are letting me give one away to a lucky reader. All you have to do to enter is fess up and answer the following in the comments attached to this blog post – What is your guiltiest parenting fail you can almost laugh about now?

Raising a family on little more than laughs”

Sharing is caring. Plus it really does make a difference. Thanks heaps.

Competition ends 10pm Sunday 17th July 2016. Entries will be judged on creativity and amusement, and winner notified within two days.

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COMPETITION HAS ENDED

Some awesomely funny reads in there making this a hard decision, but I’m pleased to announce the winner is Laura. I think you’ll agree her entry was hilarious:

“Absentmindedly telling your four year old son to play nicely and stop shouting as he races past you screaming “she’s gonna kill me!” and slamming his bedroom door in his two year old sisters face. Once my brain caught up I thought “what’s that funny noise?” Only to find said two year old with a steak knife she pulled from the open dishwasher stabbing her brother’s closed bedroom door.”

This post is rather pleasingly and obviously sponsored by smarTrike

The smarTrike Explorer 5-in-1 trikes are available at Big W, ToyR Us, Target, Baby Bunting and online at www.smartrike.com.

 

44 Comments

  • I have achieved most of these (cos they are things to strive for aren’t they) and more! Poison- only it was one of the kids in my care (makes it better!)(it was a gel to keep the cats out of the indoor plants), Bones- my then two year old was pushed off a bunk bend, I assumed all was ok cos she didn’t cry much (yes it was a broken arm and the Dr really enjoyed making my me feel guilty in that one, especially after I’d just had her there with a fat lip and a bruised face), Cars- it was raining and I thought I’d just toss my son in his seat, then do up his belts from the front. I reached around, tied his shoes up but forgot his seat belt (until we went round the corner and he slid down under the front seat).
    I’m sure they’re all ok. I haven’t been hit with therapists bills yet so all good.

  • About 2 months ago we had our first swimming lesson.. I had my 12 month old on the chair while I got dressed, as I pulled my shirt over my head I saw him mid fall.. I stuck my foot out to catch him.. He ended up with a grazed cheek. Nothing too serious. That afternoon I headed to the baby and children’s expo in Sydney that afternoon with a friend.. We collected a lot of stuff and she’s pregnant so while she was in the bathroom I decided that it would be easier if I put bub in the carrier and all the stuff in the pram. I got him up, started turning him around and then he twisted and i hadn’t managed to get him secure so he promptly fell out of the carrier and bounced more than 2 meters to the feet of a group of mums feeding their babies nearby. Everyone screamed and I picked him up and walked off…until I realized he was bleeding and bruising and my friend was taking forever.. I chose the right place to throw him throw him though.., there was a midwife, pead nurse and medic all around me within 5 mins… I had to explain both falls more than 10 times… When the hosptial was discharging us they told me he couldn’t have alcohol I almost laughed at them.. Then I realized I was the one who dropped my child twice in a day so just nodded and smiled!

    Fast forward to last week and we were playing on the playground, I put him down the slide and he face planted.. Into my foot… Blood everywhere.. The plus side? His lip tie no longer needs an anasthetic to be fixed ???

    One year in and I’m winning at this mum thing! #dontloanmeanybabies

  • Dropping the kids off at school in full clown makeup/outfits for circus day a week early!! Borrowed some track pants from lost property and wiped the faces off – no time to go home! They will never ever let me forget this one!!

  • 5 years ago, first child, 5 weeks old. My other half was told that he rolled over into the crib railing, but really I fell asleep in the bed with him after a feed and woke at that second too late that he fell out of my arm and onto the floor. Second Child, we did it again!! My babies are great rollers!!

  • Probably my most guilty thing was when I co-slept with my now 3 yo. He only fell out of bed twice. Once at about 11 months (it was onto a suitcase so wasn’t that far) and the other was onto the doona that was bunched up next to the bed. After those incidents I kept him in the middle of the bed. Maybe that’s why he’s a pretty nuts kid now!

  • Once getting my then 4 yr old ready for school, he went downstairs without me. A few minutes later I heard him crying. He had managed to find the wrench that came with his scooter and get it stuck on his index finger. We tried the usual lotion, soap, cooling it down, nothing worked. Finally had to take him to the ER. They had to numb his hand with about 4 people holding him down and then tie a string around the finger to get the wrench off. I felt horrible that I hadn’t made him wait for me. Once it was all done he wanted to go to pre-school and show his friends what not to do with wrenches.
    For his 6th birthday he was climbing down part of the play area at the playground and slipped. Hit his face on the part in front of him then recoiled and hit the back of his head. Ended up with a gusher of a bloody nose and a decent sized knot at the back of his. Luckily no concussion. The funny part of that was earlier in the day I had sprained my ankle, but as soon as I saw him hit, I took off running to him, it was only after I had him in my lap that I realized I did a lot more damage to my ankle.

  • Three years ago now 8 year and dad and now 7 year old were playing in the back yard with water guns and buckets of water… Fast forward to dad deciding throwing a whole bucket of water at now 7 year old… Was funny as he was running away it knocked him over on the grass… You just had to see it, quite hilarious! So being the funny dad he is decided he would do the same to now 8 year old…. Not so funny when said child turns to run and runs smack bang into an old hills hoist!!! Blood everywhere not so funny even though we were still laughing at it… Hospital visit and superglued up and now he has his Harry Potter scar…

    And being that I am the awesome parent that I am, my 1 year just tried to choke on my hair band she managed to find on the floor… ? So winning at this parenting jig!!! At least one has turned 17 today and has made it with only 1 broken bone… Maybe we’re not doing so bad… They’re all alive and fed and clothed!!! ?

  • I am a single mum of 6. Life is crazy! I had been getting the kids ready for school, strapped the sleeping baby into her capsule and put it on the step of the garage entrance (connected to the main house) while I got the rest of kids in car….. Get down the end of the street and one kid from the back pipes up ‘ummmm mum – did you mean to leave the baby at home?’… epic fail….

  • When my daughter was 5, she was playing soccer outside with some kids. She was the only girl. She had been complaining about playing with boys and that they hit the ball too hard at her. I told her to “suck it up cupcake, thats boys”. She eventually came upstairs crying holding her arm saying it was sore from being hit and falling over. Apparently these boys were using her for target practice grrrr. So off for a bath she went. She came out still whingeing about the stupid boys and her sore arm. I got a bit annoyed and snappy. Told her to hurry up and get dressed. All the while telling her you have to be tough playing with bigger boys. When I went to put her arm in the sleeve of her shirt it CRACKED. LOUDLY. She had a broken arm and I had pushed the bone back into place! I FLEW to the hospital and spent the next couple of hours feeding her junk from the vending machine to make up for being a shitty mum 🙁

  • When my newborn babygirl was 4 months old I was on my own and wanted a shower badly and bub was being a bub so I took her in with me, I had her secure in my arms, so i bent down with her to grab the bodywash, she slipped out of my hands onto the floor! No injury thank goodness. I went to hospital to get her checked out and all. Went home was cutting her tiny nails with clippers and i snipped her little finger! I stopped the bleeding and breast Fed her to calm down and go to sleep then made sure I did nothing else, went to sleep with towels around us and nothing more! Omg! I’m a terrible mother! Lol

  • I bought a bottle of cake decorating glaze and sat it on the bench while we popped back down the street. We get home and Miss 3 goes in to the kitchen, takes off the lid, takes a mouthful, spits it out and starts screaming and grabbing at her mouth. I look at the ingredient list and see two ingredients – 1st is Alcohol 2nd is some random number. Sure felt pretty shite calling the poison line explaining I let my 3 year old get a bottle of basically straight alcohol. :-/

  • My eldest 2 boys are 10.5mths apart when the were 1 & 2 we were living in a 2 story home with an internal stair case that had a door that opened out over the steps which we kept lock. Well the only time it get left unlock for 2sec when you come in dashing for the bathroom they decided there going to learn to climb on a chair and open the door I heard an almighty crash followed by a scream. The 1 yrs old had fallen down the stairs massive black ear 3 times the other side so of to the ER. Lots of questions later by doctors, nurses and anyone else who came to see him we all took our eyes off him for 2 mins hand in sharps container 2 doctors, 3 nurses later to hold the teeth down to get his arm out his ear is fine just give Panadol use cold packs please take him home now before anymore damage happen.

  • First day home from hospital, taking selfies lying in bed. Drops camera on newborns head! Oops.

  • For the sake of a few hours more sleep…if baby doesn’t wake during the night I let him sleep as many hours as he wants. Needless to say when it comes to nappy change the nappies are very full!

  • I went to bed late one night and as I laid down I thought “oh I didn’t lock the gate” but was too cold/lazy to get out of bed and promptly fell asleep. I woke up in the morning and thought it’s so rare to not have children wake us up, looked at the clock, it was 8:30 and the house was silent. I smacked my husband to get up and find out what was going on.

    My 18 month old was on the couch watching cartoons on the lowest sound. My 6 year old and 4 year old were no where to be seen. The sliding door to the back yard was wide open and you guessed it, the gate to the front was too.

    Cue call to the police and my husband driving around looking for them. They were found 30 minutes later at the service station across the highway, in their pyjamas with no shoes on (but wearing their helmets), eating lollies and chatting to the man behind the counter (who had thoughtfully rung the police when they turned up).

    Questioned the kids when my husband got them home, “oh Mum I told you last night I was going to go on an adventure to the shops and you said you better draw a map and take a water bottle so I did”. She had a huge smile on her face as she showed me the map she drew and proudly told me how she stopped and asked an old lady watering her garden for directions when she got a “little lost”.

    There is a fine line between imaginative play and reality and apparently I should have known the difference…

    (Meanwhile I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or strangle them when my husband walked through the door with them in tow.)

  • Gosh, where to begin!
    The most memorable #parentoftheyear moments. ….
    3 year old son standing beside me as I close a bedroom door. Child starts making odd squealing noises. He’s nowhere near the place where the door closes, so in my monumental insight I think he’s just being a twit. Admonishments follow. I walk away. He’s still standing there making sounds I can only describe as a cat stuck in a dishwasher. It then dawns on me 1. He’s trapped. 2. There’s more than one place to jam a finger in the door. ( He’d put his hand in the hinged side).
    Cue screaming trip to the e.d. with his hand being held together with sticky tape while he watches his blood run out in fascination and I try not to crash or let on how freaked out I am. (Stay calm, mum. Stay calm. STAY CALM!)
    Had to get m.i.l. to come down to e.d. because he wouldn’t look at me. He left with her because by this time I think he was seriously reconsidering his choice in parents. Head, meet desk.
    Luckily, although all is forgiven all is not forgotten. Because he reminds me. Often. TWO FREAKING YEARS LATER!

    The other most noteworthy incident occurred when son was around 2. He was a runner. I lovingly bought him a child harness which came with a little sheep backpack attached – I figured I’d rather be judged than have a child end up as roadkill. On this particular day we went in to a flooring store where I was having an in depth conversation with the assistant. Child began to pull on harness. Distractedly I gave the lead a quick sharp jerk (because, ya’no, I’m also a dog owner, and that’s what you do when they start to pull) completely forgetting it was a child on the other end. Needless to say, child fell. Hot his face on some particularly viscous click together laminate, split his lip and began wailing like the abuse victim he so obviously was. The assistant told me the harness was unnecessary, he was welcome to explore the store as he wished. All other people present stopped to stare, judge and tut. I escaped with screaming child in arms never to return to that store. (Yes, we got our flooring. Elsewhere. For more expense. And less quality)
    The sheepy leash was retired soon after.

    Oh, and my hands go up for other, less nefarious deeds such as sending him to school in his uniform on free dress day and having to smuggle street clothes into him like a mexican drug cartel, or forgetting to buckle his seat belt, or sighing and turning the other way when my requests for him not to eat the bones from the dog bowl have fell on deaf ears. …..
    Sigh
    Have kids they said. You’ll be a natural they said.

  • I entered a competition a week after my son’s first birthday to win him a Smartrike because I haven’t bought him one (or anything) yet… ?

  • Absentmindedly telling your four year old son to play nicely and stop shouting as he races past you screaming “she’s gonna kill me!” and slamming his bedroom door in his two year old sisters face. Once my brain caught up I thought “what’s that funny noise?” Only to find said two year old with a steak knife she pulled from the open dishwasher stabbing her brother’s closed bedroom door. ?

  • Yesterday I asked my 11 year old to help me with the dishes. He started wiping them and then started telling me he felt sick and leaning against the bench moaning. I have the flu and was annoyed because I thought he was just trying to get out of doing the dishes. I told him to go away and I’d do them myself. As he walks away I hear a thud behind me and turn around to find he’s fainted!! Mother of the year right here!

  • Almost 18 years ago We were at a heavily populated public swimming pool in Brisbane, that had all sorts of fun things to do for all ages of children. While I was nursing my youngest child my then 3 year old who was instructed that if he needed to pee that he had to get out of the pool. He did, but once out promptly turned around and pulled his togs down and peed into the pool like a fountain. I was horrified and went to shout out to him only to have my husband quickly hush me, saying, don’t lay any claim to him. Learnt from that to give clearer instructions

  • Almost 18 years ago We were at a heavily populated public swimming pool in Brisbane, that had all sorts of fun things to do for all ages of children. While I was nursing my youngest child my then 3 year old who was instructed that if he needed to pee that he had to get out of the pool. He did, but once out promptly turned around and pulled his togs down and peed into the pool like a fountain. I was horrified and went to shout out to him only to have my husband quickly hush me, saying, don’t lay any claim to him. Learnt from that to give clearer instructions

  • I was playing with my 10 month old daughter on some grass at a cafe when I spotted a snake about a metre away. I am petrified of snakes, so I ran as fast as I could to my husband screaming”snake”! It was only once he asked me where our daughter was that I realised I had left her crawling near the snake. Not my finest moment but something we can laugh about now! (Btw, she was fine).

  • Where to start?! My biggest parenting fail… perhaps the night I was having a turn of our newly purchased Wii Tennis game. Went for a massive shot, big wind up, the crowd’s going wild, it was going to be awesome …. until my first born walks into the room. I shouldn’t say walked, he slid into the room like a stealth ninja, and of course I didn’t see him. Of course, my glorious shot connected with his head. How do you explain to the ED doctors that you gave your own child a concussion?

  • I gave my 8 month daughter in a very sleep deprived moment eucalyptus oil , thinking it was Panadol , couldn’t work out why she was screaming and spitting it out, thank god she didn’t swallow it. After ringing the poisons centre and a quick and humiliating trip to the ED and feeling like the worst parent in the worst , the doctors assured me she would be fine. ??? she did smell very refreshing for a few hours

  • Hilarious post, as usual!

    One time when my now-7-year-old was only 2, he knocked the lamp off the bedside table.
    The lightbulb didn’t smash but the filament broke. I took it out, and made a mental note to buy another as soon as possible.
    Perhaps an hour later, Darling Son had the long metal antenna of his remote-controlled-car remote and poked it into the empty lightbulb space in the lamp, which was still plugged in.
    I can’t quite remember if there was a bang, but I ran into the bedroom to find him in tears and the remote control was smoking hot!

    Needless to say, I’m much more wary of situations that possibly lead to electrocution :/

  • Just thought of another incident…
    Was out shopping with the little one and forgot to pack nappies! Had to improvise with making a makeshift nappy out of women products (I always have a couple in my purse and the vending machine in the public bathroom helped too!) – worked a treat and managed to get home dry and fresh ;-).

  • I’ve always been super cautious and my oldest is only about to turn three so I still have plenty of time to mess up.
    But some things I’ve done:

    In a sleep deprived state changed bub during the night to wake up in the morning with her wearing two nappies. Having just put the second nappy on without taking the first one off.

    Having trouble getting oldest to settle down after dinner.
    Takes about half an hour.
    Hour later go into kitchen to get a drink, youngest is asleep in highchair using her leftover food as a pillow.

    One child went about a week refusing to eat anything other than bread.
    Took me five days before thinking of grating up veggies to put in the homemade bread so she was getting some good stuff in her.

  • Well I think the latest one would have to be jumping on the trampoline with my 2 and 4 yr old girls….thinking I’m an awesome fun mum (finally getting this parenting thing right)….when the 4 yr old just drops to the mat and starts screaming… Get her inside and she’s saying her knee hurts, check her knee out and it seems to be moving ok… Get her dad to check it out, she’s calmed down now, knee still seems to be ok. She falls asleep so we figure we’ll just see how she is in the morning, figuring she’s probably just tweaked it a bit or something…..
    Well she can’t put any weight on it in the morning, into the doc, doc sends her for X-rays (just to check, she thought she’d just tweaked it a bit too!), turns out she’s broken her femur! Just above the knee. Full leg cast for 6 weeks…. Everyone who asked what happened promptly got told that mummy was jumping on the trampoline and broke her leg!! :O

  • I had a very busy day so I put my three kids in the car, got to the butchers, went in got what I needed came back out to the car number 2 had abloom nose, all I had was a sanitary pad in the boot so that had to do, the number one child said she was feeling sick I said that she would be fine she asked for a drink so I past her the water then next minute she was vomiting into the bottle and all over herself, I still had get stuff done but one looked like she killed someone and one looked like death so we went home.

  • Does being distracted by reading this & sniggering while my 19month old climbs up next to me on the couch, not noticing him standing up & falling backwards onto the floor with a resounding thump,count?? We clapped, he’s fine. Or losing my then 3.5year old from a fenced playground when he snuck out when someone opened the gate & was bought back by a stranger after crossing 2 roads in a massive car park? In my defence I was tending to an incident with his potty-training younger brother & didn’t think other parents would allow a child out when they came in the gate! I can laugh now but at the time I was wracked with mothers- guilt! I am actually quite surprised there hasn’t been more, raising three boys!

  • My 9 month old was sitting between daddy’s legs in a toddler wading pool at our resort whilst on holidays, splashing away. Daddy was chatting intently to a random family a few feet away. However he failed to notice his son had slipped down and was lying face up between his legs underwater. Thankfully the other family lunged forward and plucked my son back out of the water before Daddy even knew what all the fuss was about. (My son was fine btw. It was a few seconds, but hey it happens so damn quickly!)

  • So when my oldest of 5 was 6, she fell off the ladder to her bunks. She had a bit of a cry & told me it was sore. I told her brush it off, you’re tough. This happened on a Friday night, all over the weekend she was still playing with the siblings & mucking about, occasionally complaining her arm was still sore, suck it up its not broken you’re still playing!
    By Monday morning she was still complaining so I thought oh maybe we should check it out, zipped her off to the GP before school & turns out she had fractured her radius!
    Woops. I probably should have taken her on the Saturday!!

  • My cranky second child had to be bottle fed due to being lactose intolerant, and one afternoon was screaming and refusing the bottle. I tried for 3 hours, rocking, lunges, jiggling and every combination till i was finally exhausted. I lay down on the bed with her and put the bottle on the side table and noticed she had drunk acually nothing…not 1 milliliter? ??
    Then i happened to notice the lump of formula stuck in the teat….. she was sucking and frustrated by my stupidity! !! ???

  • Love it! We too swear (actually me) and fight (both) in front of the kids. I’ve left my child (baby)in the house remembering as I reversed down the driveway and I have forgotten to buckle kids in! And when my firstborn was 1 week old I left her in the pram in the grocery aisle and didn’t realise till I was two aisles down! On one occasion when I was dressing my newborn son I pressed his head and his skull cap (soft bit( went in (still remember it to this day that awful feeling). Might actually explain a few things. But all in all my children are doing just fine (14 and 11). Just #keepingitreal

  • Mum of 9 and i dont know how many times I’ve sat the baby in the capsule to help
    the little ones with seat belts and then driven off and forgotten to do up the baby’s seat belt, or sent the kids to school with odd socks or yesterday’s shirt, created meals with two minute noodles, frozen veggies and Devon, been late for school drop offs or pick ups, the list goes on. But a million imperfect moments in parenting created just as many laughs and some killer stories for the many 21st to come.
    Never take life too seriously, nobody get out of here alive 🙂

  • First night home with our newborn daughter and my husband and I decided to use a normal bucket to bathe her in. We were trying to be cheap instead of using one of those special baby bath buckets you can get which cost an arm and leg. My husband did the honours of putting her in and just dropped her in it ? I quickly scooped her up but he thought that’s what you did! I think he thought she’d float ??

  • Yeah… well… I’d say the whole “effective contraceptive” thing would have to be thing biggest fail [read: win].

  • Oh so many…

    Fell asleep with 6 week old on my chest after 3am feed… Rolled over, he fell off the bed (onto a mattress, thank god).

    An exhausted mum with a 8 month old, perched him on the edge of the counter, with me RIGHT THERE holding him… Slipped past me and hit the tiles face first. First hospital trip. (He was fine – I a wreck).

    Not remembering giving him a snack… It was dogfood. He’d helped himself.

    Got talking to a friend at the park… Didn’t notice toddler climbing up the slide (the wrong way) until he took a speckie of the side…

    Poor kid isn’t even 2 yet!

  • Well, I’ll start my comment off with my first born has made it to 5yrs old! So, I may not be #winning at parenting but I’m definitely passing ha!

    It was around the 8month mark & both my husband & I decided to go out for dinner & drinks when we got the chance – his mother asked to babysit Master Now-Five. As I wasn’t breast feeding, I had a few more drinks that were ‘necessary’. Anyway, early morning, he wakes up hungry & wanting a bottle. I meander out to get a bottle & go back into his room, pick him up & start giving him a bottle. I realise I’d left the “spew rag” behind, so I figure he will be fine to sit in the corner of the big feeding recliner while I go & get it from his change table. Apparently not! He’d wriggled & fallen head first off the chair into the carpet. I frantically give him a once over (I’m a nurse in the Emergency Department) & deem him ok once he’d settled & finished his bottle. Put him back to bed & he wakes as normal (not me, terrible self-induced headache!!). Normal minus the carpet burn from the tip of his nose to his hairline in a straight vertical line! Oops!

    I consoled myself in the thought that it wasn’t as bad as my sister who accidentally dropped her daughter onto the built-in wardrobe tracks & she got horizontal lines across her forehead from, that her then 3yr old aptly named “train tracks” ???

  • I once forgot to pick my 3 yo son up from daycare after work …. Drove 30 min home before I suddenly realised when I saw a daycare centre that I hadn’t picked him up. It was 6.15pm. Lucky my hubby was just finishing work and could get him before they shut at 6.30. I was pregnant so is that a good enough excuse to forget?
    Just yesterday took my son to the paediatrician for his 3 monthly checkup, paed thinks he sees a foreign object in his ear and calls the hospital, then asks how long it’s been since he ate as he may need to go to sleep to get it removed. Mister 8 pipes up with nobody has fed me today. Seriously could have died, he usually asks for breakfast but he didn’t so with 3 younger girls under 5 we hadn’t asked him as it was first day back home after a week away. Paed laughed and said he doesn’t look like you starve him.

  • When my daughter was about 12 months she ate soap. Whilst on the phone to poisons information to see if she needed to go to ED she climbed up on the table and picked up the superglue I had left there. Stuck her hand to her face and I had to tell the poisons info lady to not bother we were going anyway to get the superglue off her. Not an easy one to explain at the ED but laugh about it now that she is almost 7.

  • Driving in the minivan doing bout 80km with MIL behind the wheel and son roughly 16months in car seat. We’re just talking bout nothing really then start talking bout if he would have the strength to open the door. Moment the words are out of my mouth the door slides open. Seems to be yes he has. Quickly pull over and child lock straight on.

  • Standing in line at Dominos with my then 2 year old who had just learnt the names of colours, when a very dark Indigenous bloke walked in. “Look, Mum! Black!” He yelled out. I glanced back and turned away mortified as I said “Yes baby, his jumper IS black!” as the mans wife had a giggle and elbowed him in the ribs.

What do you think?

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