"Mother of the Year Award"

Lately I have been having those moments where if I was a stranger, watching myself, I would think, "Seriously? She's a mom? Where is her brain? What was she thinking?" But since I am me and I would like to think I see the bright side of a lot of situations, I just think its freaking hilarious. Let me share...

The other day, the kids and I were getting some groceries at Walmart. My friend Heather called to say she was out running errands at lunch and decided to get a quick lunch at Okoboji and wondered if I could meet her. We were almost done at Walmart and it was lunch time so of course, I would like to feed my kid chicken nuggets instead of going home to make something more nutritious than that. I told her we would be there as soon as we could, knowing that she had a 1pm meeting she needed to be back for. It would be a quick lunch but it would be fun to see Heather, it had been a few weeks and we needed to catch up. Luckily, both Walmart and Okoboji are right down the street from my house. Not so lucky, Walmart never has enough checkouts open. It was a warmer day and I bought milk so I just ran home to drop off the milk and soon we were pulling into the parking lot at the restaurant. I knew we were pressed for time so I got the kids out of the car and was carrying Ethan inside. As usual, Isabelle was lollygagging so I told her to run, run, run!! The greeter was holding the 1st door open for me. I went thru to the 2nd door and opened it and Isabelle was right there - she is a fast runner! So I swing open the door open and it hits her right smack in the forehead! She falls backwards, all the way down, on her back, screaming!! The greeter lets out this sympathetic groan...and me, being the awesome mom that I am, start laughing. Yep. First response. Then my mom brain kicks in, I ask if she's all right and tell her to come inside where I can look at her forehead. Then I say to the greeter who has the most confused look on his face, "I get "mom of the year" for that move." Heather said she knew when we were there because she heard screaming....

And on a different Walmart trip: I left my kids at the checkout to be watched by the cashier as I ran outside to the car to get my billfold. Ooops. But she was super nice and was a grandma so I guess I thought it would be OK. Still....not cool. At least it was early in the morning, before all the crazies come out.

The other day when we were having rain non stop, I really needed an oil change because we were going to my parents' for the weekend. It was kind of a spur of the moment trip so I needed to multi-task: still had to pack, shower, clean the house (you can't leave and come home to a messy house) and get to the toy store to buy a birthday gift for my nephew too. Midas is right next to Toys R Us so I thought 'lets just put the kids in the double stroller and walk over there, a little rain won't hurt.' Isabelle had her umbrella and I had one too, Ethan would be under a big blanket. And the last time I took my car in, it took about 2.5hrs and I even had an appointment! So I drop off the car and get the kids loaded up in the stroller and we started our walk. I didn't factor in the wind. Or the fact that it really was raining a bit heavier than I thought. We are going against the wind and are almost halfway to the Toys R Us parking lot when the wind takes Isabelle's umbrella and is rolling it thru the mall parking lot. I can't just leave the kids in the stoller in the parking lot. But I can't just let the umbrella go either. (Its super cute and she just got it for her birthday.) So I run for it. With the stroller. The rain is pelting us, the umbrella just won't stop and I can't catch the damn thing! Good thing Isabelle was strapped in. And poor Ethan didn't know what the hell was going on. Cars were driving by us, on the little access road between the mall and the other stores. I'm sure they were laughing their butts off at me. I sure was! I thought I was going to pee my pants at one point....that damn umbrella just kept rolling away! By the time I got it, we were halfway between Target and Toys R Us. I almost just went to Target but that would have been a horrible walk back to Midas. So I turned around, and we had to buck the wind all the way back. We got to the store and I'm sure they all thought I was crazy for taking 2 kids out in the rain like that. We were drenched. Completely soaked. We got our shopping done and headed back to Midas. The rain was still heavy but by this time, it didn't matter. I still tried to use my umbrella but the wind broke it. I should have known better and like I said, it didn't really matter since we were drowned rats. The guy at Midas is a family friend; he and they guys got quite a laugh when I asked if they saw our adventure. They didn't of course. Should have just kept my mouth shut. And they said they would have just let the umbrella go. But I couldn't so I guess that makes me a good mom afterall.