Mother of the Year

Yeah if there were any doubts on how out of control I am as a mother, they came to a screeching halt yesterday. I love my son more than anything in the world and I think that he's growing up to be a hilariously inventive and witty child. I think sometimes I help with that and I'm also helping to harness his energy to be used for good and not evil. These are all things that good moms do.

But good moms also bake cookies and make homemade bread. They fry bacon in the morning and sew Halloween costumes. They make yarn pom poms and handmade pillows. I have yet to do any of these things for my son.

I guess that my time with him is precious. During the school year, I am teaching and he's a preschool. When we're reunited at 5:00ish, I don't want to spend the remainder of the evening creating things. I'd rather curl up with a copy of a Mr. Man book and have him plop in my lap for some reading. Even better, I'd like to spend some time going down the slide with him or sitting behind him as he uses the playground steering to guide our "boat" into dock.

So we've had no homemade pancakes and we rarely have a home cooked dinner these days. There's just no time. I wish I could say that I made my own baby food or that he's never had a banana that's not organic but if I said any of these things I'd be lying.

All of these things mean that I was never a front runner for mother of the year. If I had a chance--even an inkling--at such an award, I really lost it yesterday.

We went out for pizza for dinner yesterday. On the way home, we stopped to get a few movies for the long weekend. By the time we pulled up the drive way and into the garage of our house, it was 7:30 which means bath, brush teeth, bed, book. My husband got out of the car before I ever did. He disarmed the alarm and went inside, leaving me to do some juggling.

Before I got out of the car, I got my iced tea thermos, the movies, and some clothing that needed to go in the house. I went to the back seat and got my son out of the car. He had his shoes off so I picked him up and put him on my hip, gathering his milk cup with the other hand. As I'm talking to him, I shut the door to our car...on his leg!

Oh man did I feel badly about it! He's got this bump and it's all black and blue. He screamed and screamed. At least it's not broken I guess.

Yeah, I'm a bad mommy. That cemented it right there.