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| 1970 Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser (Photo credit: aldenjewell) |
At the movies recently I saw a promo for a movie about stay-at-home dads. They repeated several times to one of the newbies of the group that, "There's no judging." That mantra was followed by a stream, a hilarious stream, of mistakes each of them had made or crazy things their children had done, while they were distracted. In each case, their children had survived. I immediately thought of the day that I curiously tugged at the gear handle in our boat of a station wagon and started rolling the family tug down the gravel driveway. I flashed on the morning that my 1 1/2 year old son opened the front door of the house by himself (we didn't know he could do that) and went for a walk, crossing two alleys and traveling 3 blocks before we found him. No judging.
I want to hear your own confessions. I was raised Catholic and am ready to use this space for a little emotional purging. What is the thing that you survived that still amazes? The parenting mishaps/indiscretions that your own children survived? I'm prepared to share a bunch of mine but it would be so much more fun if I wasn't the only one laughing at myself...
Yay for confessionals!
ReplyDeleteI am still amazed I survived playing in the "ponds" which were actually ditches on the side of the train tracks. Collected crayfish and tadpoles I am surprised I didn't collect leeches and dysentery! No judging.
As for my children- I thoroughly vetted babysitters when I first decided to go out and leave them with strangers. Even with all the interviewing and fretting once when I was actually still in the house my son got into his babysitters purse and found an interesting key chain. Too bad it was a can of pepper spray and he proceeded to shoot it directly into his eye. No judging.
Yay for pepper spray and leeches! You made me laugh out loud which is what I needed and was hoping for. Thanks. xo
ReplyDeleteI don't have kids and never did anything dangerous as a little person, but a book could be written about my little brother who at 2.5 lit a recliner on fire (tried to put it out by himself with juice glasses of water.On the 3rd glass my mom followed him); climbed a ladder to the roof at 3 (wearing only his underwear and a fireman's hat) in the minute it took my dad to walk into the house for a tool; purposely got lost at the Pontiac Silverdome and made his way to the midway during a monster truck show (ended up in the cab of a truck sitting on a guy's lap pulling levers as they announced his name over the loudspeaker) and came to me to ask if he could drink something he found in the medicine cabinet; I said "no", he drank it anyway and got his stomach pumped in the ambulance on the way to the ER. These are just a few of many, many stories and only cover 2-3 years old. There are four of us and only he did this kind of stuff. My mom said he taught her to take the phrase "my kid will never" out of her verbal repertoire.
ReplyDeleteWow! What is your brother doing today? An engineer? Doctor? Mechanic? My assumption would be that he's still trying to figure out how things work and asking questions. Very curious if that's the case or not. Let's just be glad he survived his preschool years!
DeletePretty much all of those things. He is working on his 4th degree. He has physics, chemical engineering and law degrees. He's now in medical school. He's married with 2 little kids. So, he's still crazy in my book. He's one of those risk takers who always lands on his feet.
ReplyDelete