<p>The thread about the parents left at the airport made me think a thread about our terrible mistakes (without horrible outcomes) as parents might be funny.</p>
<p>I’ll start with one.</p>
<p>Swimcat was a real crier as a baby. One day I drove into town and she cried the whole way - which was normal for her so I ignored it. When I got to my destination I discovered I had not buckled her car seat in properly and she and the seat were dangling upside down. Definite bad mother award.</p>
<p>For shame, SCmom.</p>
<p>As a toddler, D1 was having a tantrum while I was at the sink washing dishes. I apparently was ignoring her angst, so she moved between me and the kitchen counter to continue the tantrum. Still not enough reaction from Dad, so she stomped her foot - very hard - and her heel landed right on my big toenail. My involuntary reaction was to jerk my knee up in pain, and in so doing so I hit her squarely in the back of the head, driving her nose-first into the kitchen cabinet, which really made her scream. Of course, GAmom had to walk into the room a millisecond after my toenail was crushed so all she saw was Dad retaliating against a crying child by angrily kneeing the girl, head-first, into a door. The kid got comforted for her assault on me and I was screamed at for five minutes before I could get a word in sideways. </p>
<p>(But I retaliated against D1 by procreating D2, who delighted in offering fake comfort to sisterly tantrums before leaning forward and screeching as violently as possible to see if she could exacerbate the tantrum.)</p>
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LOLswimcatsmom. I’ll bet that 2yo did leave his/her parents after being ditched. (Funny typo!)</p>
<p>Oops - I didn’t even realize I had typed that wrong. Now if it was a teenager involved it probably would be the parents being left at the airport.</p>
<p>Ouch Gadad</p>
<p>One of my worst parenting moments came a couple of months ago. DD (16) said she didn’t feel well Sunday night, Monday morning she said she wasn’t going to school. DH was leaving for a business trip, and I work until noon each day, about 6 miles from home. I called home around 10 am to check on her, and she sounded awful. I asked how she was doing and she said she was having trouble breathing. I asked if she wanted me to come home but she said no, she was ok. So I stayed at work. When I was ready to leave work at normal time (noon-ish), I called again and told her I needed to go to the grocery store, should I go on the way home or did she want me to come home first? She asked me to come home first, and suddenly my “dumb mom, why didn’t you go home sooner” alarm went off. I drove home and found her flushed, glassy-eyed, almost drooling, laying on the couch with no TV or music on (DD ALWAYS has the tv or her iPod on, she hates silence). I could hear her breathing from across the room - actually, from the far side of the house. Her temp was 102 and she was almost delirious. Turned out she had the full-blown flu. She lost 7 pounds and missed a week of school, and wasn’t “right” for another week after that. </p>
<p>I will never figure out why I didn’t go home when DD told me she was having trouble breathing. WHAT was I thinking? She told me she didn’t need me to come home, now when I ask her why she says, “I didn’t want to complain and I thought you’d figure it out.” Now we know - if she needs me she has to SAY so, and I will err on the side of caution from now on!</p>
<p>you guys ain’t got nothing compared to me… I ran over my daughter’s foot with the car when she was in 5th grade. It’s a story that will be told at my funeral someday.</p>
<p>Here’s one that goes back a generation: my older brother called down the stairs to our Mom, “my teeth hurt really bad.” No response from downstairs. Long wait. Brother shouts down again, “Ma, don’t look in Dr. Spock. Call a dentist.”</p>
<p>I only tell this story to distract from the fact that I could fill pages with all my flawed moves trying to raise everyone to okey-dokeyness.</p>
<p>My worst day was when we moved and lost two of our children for several hours. The movers left the doors open for many hours, and somehow they slipped away together, one trusting the other to know what to do.</p>
<p>Unlike the dog, there was no kennel to board them for the day. We found them with police help.</p>
<p>Great stories. My first reaction on reading the title was “No, how did WE ever survive their childhood?”</p>
<p>A couple of times we “lost” child #2 but he was an absent-minded kid and it wasn’t our fault, really. 
Once we were all walking home from the library and decided to stop in at the drugstore on the way. No one noticed little brother had continued down the sidewalk without us! “Wait, why isn’t he in the store ANYWHERE?” Turns out he was reading as he walked so didn’t notice we had made a detour.</p>
<p>Our littlest was a wanderer, too. She would leave one of older sibs classrooms on my volunteer day and wander off to another teacher’s room. They all knew her & she was so good, they would give her crayons, but we would have to do a campus “all call” to find her :eek: And several times when we drove two cars, DH and I would each arrive home with one of the older two with littlest one left behind…drive back to get her and she never noticed. :D</p>
<p>Once and only once the middle sis got left behind- in middle school the cross country coach asked me to organise the rides for grades 4-8 to a meet an hour away. DD asked if she could ride with her friend’s mom & I said yes and went on to assign every one else; got in my car and left. Half an hour into the drive I had an adrenaline rush realising I never confirmed the ride, called the school & she was in the office crying. Dad grabbed her, I turned around, we met in the middle and got her to the meet in time.</p>
<p>The very bad day continued with the poorly run meet running age groups together (normally a race per grade and frequently 100 kids running in each grade and sex race) This was all the 4th/5th/6th graders, D was pushed down, stepped on (big boy footprints on her back) but, for her, worst of all she did not get a gold medal even though she was first in her grade, because older kids won them all 
Oh the trauma of it all</p>
<p>Not a happy day, and never shall it be forgotten!</p>
<p>My Mum is still memorialised on old home movies practically dislocating my brother’s arm as a 4 year old smart alec. He is now 60, mum is 80+ and she still gets teased!</p>