Anyone who watches "Modern Family" remember that episode where Cam is jealous that Lily is giving all her attention to Mitchell and as he tries to elbow his way back into her favor, he inadvertently keeps causing her to get hurt? Like, he accidentally throws her into the pool; he gives her one of those motorized mini cars and she drives it into something and gets hurt; he throws rice during a fake wedding and some gets in her eye, etc. Hilarious!
Not so funny when it actually happens to you. Especially if you're having a stressful day or you're anxious already for whatever reason.
To make a long story short because I have some shows to catch up on, I was at the zoo with my kiddo enjoying the Halloween stuff they had going on. At one point, I stopped to check and see if his diaper was poopy, and I stood him up on the bench of a table in a food area so I could better see down the back of his diaper. I didn't have a great hold on him with the one hand, and my other hand was pulling his pants away from his body, and in this five seconds my kiddo took a step back into nothingness, and he fell off the bench onto the ground under the table. Obviously he was terrified because he thought he was stepping onto a stable surface and there was nothing there but empty space, and we've all done that before with a stair step or something, so we know how startling that can be. Luckily he was bundled up in a thick hoodie so he didn't hit his head at all; he kind of just fell on his side and rolled a little. But in the split second I saw my poor baby hit the ground, I almost died of fright and panic. Of course he immediately started crying and I'm trying to pick him up as he's struggling to sit up to check him for injuries and apologizing profusely for not catching him and also holding back my own tears because I don't want to have a meltdown myself in the middle of the fucking zoo. After sobbing for a couple of minutes, he calmed down when his cousin gave him a little stuffed football and some pieces of cookie from her ice cream cup. I watched him walk around for a little bit to make sure he wasn't hurt, at which time I managed to hold back my tears of guilt and shame. I let my baby fall on the fucking concrete...who does that??
Fast forward to the next day, we're playing outside and he wants to put the basketball in the basketball hoop, like you do. I'm a short person. I have short arms. My kid is still pretty small, so he doesn't have long arms either. The idea crosses my mind to try and sit him on my shoulders so he can reach the rim. I raise him up over my head, but I can't quite get my head under him properly because he's wearing these stupid sweat pants with the drop crotch. Well, in my attempts to get him on my shoulders, I'm completely unaware that we're standing almost right under the backboard, so when I lifted him up over me, I accidentally hit his head on the corner of the backboard. Yeah, that's right; the pointy, sharp, METAL corner of the backboard. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. It's a good thing I'm so weak, because it was just a slight bump, but the fact that it happened at all was crushing to me. I had just had a scare the day before with him falling at the zoo and now I was pulverizing his soft little head on a metal shard. MOM OF THE YEAR.
These aren't the first instances where the kiddo has fallen or had a head bonk on my watch, and of course they won't be the last. And these certainly weren't instances of life or death. All kids fall or trip or bonk heads or get scrapes or bruises. Those minor injuries throughout childhood are probably helping teach the little ones how to survive long enough to get to adulthood. I just couldn't help but feel like I failed at being a mom in those moments, and the thought of that brought me to tears and stressed me the hell out.
Being a mom is hard. Some days are harder than others. I guess those days are what Target and wine are for. Cheers!
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