Confession 34 - Your Worst Mommy Moment

Today I'm confessing about being a "real" mom, yes, the kind that loves her kids but makes many mistakes. Yup, I said it, I'm not the perfect mom (shocking right?). Well, when I came across Meagan's post from The Happiest Home, it hit a nerve.

I mean, I was just siting at the baseball field yesterday with my friend watching her son play the last game of the season and my daughter comes up to me on the bleachers screaming in rage. You guessed it... She ran to me during the optimal time, the time when the ball is not moving on the field and the batter is just getting into position waiting for the ball to be pitched, yes the quietest time on the field! As she comes over to me I can visually see she is not hurt and that she is crying for attention, mubbling something about what her sister did and trying to get her way (ie, fighting with Big B). Typical of Little B. I take one look at her and tell her to stop, this of course makes her scream louder and now she starts to solicit looks from other moms. Oh great, I know, most of you have been there, at least the "perfect" moms like me :-). Then, what I do next, is merely out of instinct to get her to quiet down and stop screaming. I place my hand on her mouth, and in doing so squeeze her cheeks, and tell her to stop crying NOW! I try to be curt but not overly loud, I didn't need any other mom's turning to look. This got her to calm down a bit and phew she eventually stopped.  It wasn't my best parenting moment, and I'm sure I could have handled things better. But hey, I'm human, and well, Little B was on my last nerve! Luckily, this "mommy moment" wasn't photographed and I can probably say wasn't the worst (yes, I've had worse, and that is for another post).

So check out Meagan's post, you'll see that she is the "perfect" mom just like all of us.  Her moment, carrying her then 3 year old son in a football hold away from a wedding photo shoot, was documented in a picture that she then posted 10 years later on her Facebook Page. She reflects back in her post about how different her son is now, nearly 10 years later and that all things, like this type of toddler misbehavior will eventually pass. Meagan writes:

 “Speaking of hard parenting moments, I wanted to share this picture I ran across in a box recently. It’s me, at a family wedding, largely pregnant, carrying my completely-freaking-out three-year-old away from the professional photo session. He was a real handful back then, but he is now 13 and a more lovely young man you could not imagine. I just want to take my old self from this picture, give her a big hug and tell her everything really WILL be OK.”

She had an outpouring of supporters and commenters on her site. All positive and reflective mostly on how it was nice to hear from another mom, that things will pass.

Her post solicited so much spur, that she approached the Huffignton Post on writing an essay.
There she writes:

I do know that I can no more take total credit for the way Isaac is today, than I can take all the blame for the way he was then. I didn't do everything right, nor did I do everything wrong. I wasn't always consistent and I didn't always follow through. I was as firm and loving as I could be while sometimes buckling under the weight of parenting a challenging child.

Man, I can so relate to Meagan! She totally gets it? Then, I find out she is a mom of 5 and, well, it all makes sense. You see, parenting and being a mom has more to do with experience than anything.

She goes on to write:

But maybe most of all, because it [the picture] serves as an important reminder that as parents, we never can be sure of how our kids will turn out, nor exactly what our role and influence might be in the outcome. We try our best, we make mistakes, and we hope for the best.

I guess that's what this photo represents most to me. Hope. Hope that my worst days of parenting will be followed by some kind of sweet reward, even if I can't imagine it right now.

Yes, Rock on Meagan, you are so right, try our best, make mistakes and hope for the best! So, yes, the sweet reward! I'm waiting patiently for that one. I'm in the midst of it I feel with Little B, she is so hard to parent and quite exhausting. But then, I thought that of Big B when she was 3 and look at her now at 9.  So yes, all things will pass and there is Hope!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you liked my latest confession!