A Mother's Mistake

We, as mothers, make mistakes all the time. There is no such things as the perfect mom. There is this ideal that you can be the perfect mother who never raises her voice, never has to discipline, never neglects a need of your child, always has time to sit and play with your children, have conversations about feelings, read them books, all while you manage the other duties that fall on your plate. Well, that mother doesn't exist. The mistake would be to think that you can be that person. I'm not saying it's right to raise your voice, or to neglect their needs, but we are human and sometimes these things will happen.... for some of us, more often that for others. I say all of that to tell you, that those mistakes really have nothing to do with this post.

I'm talking about the mistake I made the other day. It was a lesson that I think most mothers end up learning the hard way. This lesson is that you don't try and have a fun adventure day (that's code for I had errands to run and I needed them to be excited about it) when it will end up being a no nap day.

We are preparing for VBS and last week I had a few errands that I had to run. I've gone to the grocery store with all three kids one time, but it was not during nap time and we got the fun cart (that's code for it's the cart that keeps them all strapped in, but they think it's fun because it has special big kid seats). Well, my errands last week did not involve stores with fun carts and they were on the other side of town, so nap time was going to be interrupted. But for some crazy reason I felt like I was superwoman and that I could do it.

So, I armed myself with juice cups, a double stroller, netflix on my phone and off we went. First stop was at a consignment store for cowboy (and girl) boots. This particular consignment store is a kids consignment. It has quite a large, unavoidable toy section and the toys are used so they aren't in packages to deter children from touching and playing with everything they see. Now, since I have a double stroller, two kids are contained, but there's that one that has some freedom. Obviously, I chose our oldest to be the free one. She was excited to look for boots until she saw the toys. Did I mention the toy section is unavoidable and right next to the shoes. So, I had quite the difficult time trying to get her to sit still long enough to try on boots, and every time I went to dig through a bin for different boots she would be off finding a new toy to play with. She managed to find a doll that was bigger than her and she told me, "This is the biggest baby I have ever seen. I'm taking it home." Ya, no thank you. We did not buy the biggest baby ever.

My second oldest wasn't too bad. He lasted and was content for a little while in the stroller until he saw the toys, that's when Netflix came into play. He got to watch Winnie the Pooh, and that made him happy... for a little bit. When it was his turn to try on boots he was very happy, until I took them back off. He decided he wanted to wear his boots right then. He didn't get to because for one, I had to pay for them, and two, he was not wearing socks. Sweaty, no sock, boot feet. YUCK! So checking out went quite interesting. My oldest decided she was tired, and didn't want to walk anymore, but I couldn't carry her, so she was crying. My second didn't get to wear his boots, so he was crying. The baby, however, was an angel through the whole store. She slept through it all.

We finished up and it was on to the next store. We were already on the other side of town, so despite how the first stop went, we were going to press on. I don't know if I mentioned, but our next stop was party city. Common sense would tell you, "don't take toddlers into party city". But apparently I have no common sense. Especially since I thought it was a good idea to let the two oldest walk. They may be the oldest, but they are still only 2 and 3. This post is already long, so I'll spare you the details. Let's just say that party city is probably the coolest place on earth to my 2 and 3 year old. They started out walking, they touched everything. So they ended up in the cart, which made them very unhappy and they still tried to succeeded to touch everything. I ended up at the checkout with a buzz lightyear mask that I never even saw go into the cart.

By 7:00 one or the other of them had been crying non top since 2:00 and I was seriously debating putting my kids to bed. I didn't though, because I didn't want to get up at 4:00 the next morning. But I made the mistake and I learned my lesson. Nap time is not optional.

We did find some great stuff though!!

Well, I'm done confessing my mistakes. It's your turn. What are your "mommy mistakes"?