How I Failed Today

Ever have those days where you completely fail as a parent?  In more ways than one?

If your answer is no, then stop reading because you will be judging me.  If your answer is yes, then feel free to read on and make yourself feel better.

Let me back up to yesterday to set the picture...

After defrosting the van, I piled the kids into the car, backed out of the driveway and started to head to school.  A little bit of the frost was still dripping down my window, so I pressed the button to roll down the window.  Immediately, I heard a grinding sound and the glass quickly slid down.  Thankfully, I grabbed it before it disappeared out of sight. 

So, there we were, driving to school, freezing our little butts off, while I held on to the window with one frost bitten hand and drove with the other.  Eventually (thanks to non-moving traffic) I was able to mess with it a little bit and pull it back up.  I still held on and once it seemed that it would stay, I let go.

Yeah, that lasted about two minutes.  I hit one little bump and, crap, there it went.  Out of sight.  No way to pull up the window.

Awesome.

On to today...

Nick, being the amazing husband that he is, drove the van to school today so that the kids and I could ride in comfort in the cadillac.

By comfort, I mean all the kids crammed together in the back like sardines, but-we had heat!

After dropping everyone off at school, I ran some errands.  I stopped at Once Upon a Child to drop off some items (had to make some money to pay for that broken window).  Now, these were my two options:  Take Noah out of the car, chase him around the parking lot while I struggled to carry two large totes of stuff OR leave him in the locked car while I took the totes into the store.

Come on, moms-what would you do?

I need to point out that I was parked right by the door, could see him the entire time and I was in the store for less than 30 seconds.

As I started to walk out, a women came in and said to me, "Excuse me, is that your child in the car?  He is all alone and awake!"

I had no response, but "Okay" as I continued out to the car.

I chose not to respond with what I wanted to say to her, which was, "Excuse me, why are you bringing in your newborn baby with no extra layers on and not carrying him in a pumpkin seat with blankets?"

Okay, so chalk up my "leaving my kid in the car alone" to another way that I fail as a parent.  And add that to "driving in 30 degree weather with no window" and I was on my way to winning parent of the year.

But, oh, it gets better.

As I drove home from being reprimanded by that super awesome mom who knew everything, I had to quickly pull over for an ambulance.  As I did that, I heard a "Whoa, fall!" from Noah.  I looked back and his carseat was completely sideways while he hung there, frantic.

What the...?

As I used my super human strength that moms tend to get in cases like this and pushed him back up, I pulled into the nearest gas station and got out to help him.  It was then that I discovered that he had unbuckled the seatbelt that was holding in his carseat.

Seriously, Noah?  Since when did you learn how to do that?

And this is where I point out how much I love my mini van and the lack of damage that Noah can do in it.

So, where does that leave us?  Freezing my kids in the car, leaving them alone, and letting them go seatbeat free. 

I would try and defend myself, but Noah is currently standing on top of a toy that has wheels trying to grab the Halloween candy bowl.  I should probably try and stop him.