Tuesday, August 26, 2014

My Parenting Fail

The saying "bad moments don't make you a bad mom" repeats over and over again in my head almost every day. And though I try my best, I KNOW I'm going to fail her. I know there will be moments when I instinctively react to something and later decide it was the wrong reaction. I know these moments are coming.

And last night was the first. The first time instincts and fear took over. And I'm pretty sure I traumatized our child. 

So, here goes...

Last night we were sitting on the couch reading 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear' when I feel something land on my neck. (MY! NECK!) I flick the offending something off only to discover it was a huge tree roach that then lands on the baby's leg. 

And I go BERSERK! COMPLETE MELTDOWN!!!! SCREAMING LIKE A BANSHEE!!! 

"IT WAS ON ME!!!! GET IT OFF THE BABY!!!! GET IT OFF THE BABY!!!!!" Full on tears and total meltdown mode. 

I'm screaming, the baby is crying, my Beloved is swatting at Alice attempting to remove the offending evil and the dog is throwing himself on the outside door because apparently His Man is in danger. My Beloved scoops up the terrified child and hugs his HYSTERICAL wife. Between my Nancy Kerrigan "WHY ME?!?!" sobs, he manages to hand me the baby. I ask him if he got it and he says, "I have to find it first. It got away." 

More tears. More shaking. I'm not cut out for this. I can't be having nasty little evil things land on me. It apparently makes me do totally irrational things like throw them at our baby. I can't. 

I just....can't.....

So I'm bouncing a crying baby while attempting to calm my shaking hands as Daniel looks for the creature. He finds it and it does not survive. Take THAT, you nasty thing! 

I then start to ask "where did it come from? WHERE DID IT COME FROM?!?!" My Beloved says he doesn't know and it doesn't matter.

**Insert crazy eyes here.**

I'm not totally convinced it didn't crawl out of the couch and since my husband was totally against my "BURN IT TO THE GROUND!!!" suggestion, he vacuumed the couch for me. 

The baby eventually calmed enough to sit on the newly vacuumed couch with me but I did notice she kept looking up around the room to make sure nothing else was coming our way. Oops. 

As we're getting ready for bed, Daniel notices something under the bed. He moves it out with his foot and jumps a bit. And again - I lose it. It's just too much. It turns out it was only a pacifier but still. My nerves are spent. S.P.E.N.T. 

We go to bed last night and I'm still shaken. Seriously. It's just so very not okay. My Beloved says, "at least it wasn't a cockroach! Those are nasty!"

Hold the phone. 

EVERYTHING in that sentence is WRONG. That sentence SHOULD read "ALL roaches are nasty and deserve nothing but the fires of Hades." Period. 

While I don't want to project my fears on to her, I will DIE if I ever find her playing with a nasty roach. DIE! 

I thought about not posting this story. It's not my most finest moment. And I'm pretty sure throwing a roach on your child might be considered child abuse. 

My friend, Shani, told me it was more like 'self preservation' and she 'needed something to laugh at anyway'.

So here you go. And now I'm all itchy again.....

Until next time.....



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