I'm more or less resigned to the fact that constantly worrying about being a good enough mum goes with the territory - along with enough guilt to fill a year's worth of maxi nappies and an overpowering fear that I may be raising the next Adolf Hitler. Sometimes, however, I do something so monumentally stupid that even I wonder if I shouldn't just call Childline myself and have Isabel taken far away from me for her own protection.
It happened like this: Isabel was tucking into her dinner (mainly smearing it across the highchair, her face, the floor, aiming it at the tv and occasionally getting some in her mouth). For some reason, I had grabbed a disposable plastic fork to feed her with. Goodness knows why. Halfway through the meal, I suddenly realised that one of the prongs from the fork was missing. Cold sweat. Don't panic, I thought, it's probably in her bowl. I picked through the mushy veg. Nothing. Scrambling down, I quickly sifted through the sticky mess on the floor while Isabel dropped baked beans in my hair. Pulse racing, I grabbed my highly amused toddler out of the highchair and gave her a good shake to see if it had fallen down. Nothing. She giggled at me. Then she abruptly stopped giggling and bit me as hard as she could as I clumsily dug around in her mouth looking for the pointy plastic prong.
I never found it- I just sweated out the next few days looking for signs of unusually eye-watering straining (ouch). What I did learn from this umpteenth display of maternal ineptitude is Parenting Lesson No. Seven hundred million and two: do not feed your toddler with a disposable plastic fork. If you must, then count the prongs before you start, thus avoiding days of fretting and poo-sifting afterwards.
The thought that I'm responsible for teaching her about life is quite frankly terrifying.
Monday, 16 January 2012
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7 comments:
your posting will always make me laugh, you are so good at it
thanks cecile! how are you? no sign of the new arrival yet??? x
Thank you for writing, for sharing! I adore it! Mamma Mel has such a fantastic way with words!
Xo
Matt and I are sitting here laughing away! Your poor child!! Lol!!
Hey Dianna, that's such a nice thing to say! Hope you're getting on well and enjoying life :)
xx
Hi Faye, what can I say, it's tough being a mum! I'm much better at it when she's at nursery school all day... god help the next one! Lots of love to you both x
Ahahahah! Perhaps you should have done what we do when our dogs scarf down a chicken bone before we can retrieve it: feed her a slice of dry bread. Then you can sit back and say with confidence 'this too shall pass'.
Tee hee.
I'm glad she was OK! It's amazing what they do, and can survive. I'll never forget the day I gave my youngster a drink from one of our nicer glasses and he bit a chunk clean out of it. Talk about going cold!
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