Boy, was that me today! After the events of today I feel that a confession is in order (Oh, and if you don’t want to read about baby poop, sorry because here goes). Hopefully this will help me clear my conscience!
I went to the grocery store today with my two 9-month-old baby girls. I was feeling very pleased with myself, having put together a weekly dinner menu and a grocery list in record time that morning. I had to be home by 11:30 so the girls could eat lunch, so I was pleased with our 8:40 exit time. Not being a very high-maintenance mom, I grabbed a few diapers, my reusable bags, my front pack baby carrier, and our newly handed down shopping cart cover. See why I can’t be too high maintenance? Just loading the basics and 2 babies takes 2 trips to the car! We get to the store, (Oh, my gosh, I am already hanging my head in shame) and I realize that Emmy had, let’s call it “a present” in her diaper. It stunk. But, as you may recall, I only grabbed diapers. No wipes. Poor baby, I was kinda hoping she could wait til we were done shopping to be changed. Hopefully her messy diaper would motivate me to hustle along and get out quickly. And I was making great time, actually. After about 15 minutes I was more than halfway through my list.
I had Emmy in the cart and was wearing Maddie in the front pack baby carrier-I’ve posted about this method of shopping with twins here. Maddie was having a grand old time babbling as I bounced her up and down. Up and down. Up, down, up, down. Right on my stomach. Suddenly I just knew that it was my turn to use the restroom. And this was not one of those “I can hold it” feelings. This was a “Good Lord, what did I eat?!” feeling. So… you’re not supposed to take shopping carts into the bathroom, and plus I really didn’t think this one would fit around the restroom’s tight entrance corner. I figured I could do my thing with Maddie in the carrier. But what to do with Emmy? Here’s where my second mom fail of the day comes in: I picked Emmy up out of the cart, carried her on my hip, and set her on the nasty grocery store bathroom floor inside the stall with me. She was super happy about it, and entertained herself by attempting to whap the walls and all the disgusting public restroom equipment. Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep her from touching anything and also trying not to let Maddie’s feet dip into the potty. It really made me thankful that no one else was in there with us to witness my awesome parenting. At that point, I felt like a total jerk because I got to “go” and Emmy still wasn’t changed. So I raced out to the cart and grabbed the travel pack of wipes that I had thrown in while shopping to use on Emmy when I was done and quickly changed her. Smiles all around.
Now, I have to defend myself just a little bit. I had changed the babies TWICE before we left, and they had amazing “presents” both times. Whereas I took this as a sign that they should be done with pooping for the day, I really should have seen that this was a sign of the kind of day I was in store for.
So that’s it. I’ll take that “bad mom” award now.
I’d love to hear your bad mom story, or you can share a link to a post you may have written on a bad mom moment (please tell me I’m not the only one who confessed bad parenting to the world!).
