We have an award in our house: it’s the “Bad Parent of the Day”.
It started as a joke. Your dad had a quiet chat with me a few days after we came home from the hospital and he went to work which went along the lines that as I’m at home with ‘the baby’ all day every day then I’m the one who is most likely to be the responsible parent when ‘the baby’ does get injured. Accidental maybe, but we both knew it was going to be heartwrenching, and that was your dad’s way of telling me that he wasn’t going to be angry or upset or judgemental, just supportive. Because the odds were against me.
To be honest, I don’t even remember now what your first big mishap was. I should have blogged about it, because I know it was very real and scarey at the time, but now it has just melded into a conglomerate memory of the past few months, where some days you injure yourself, or I injure you (unintentionally and generally pretty minor so far, cross fingers) and some days nothing happens but you’re still grumpy and scream at times and I’m still lacking sleep so really ask me the next day what happened the day before and I’d be hard pressed. (Oh, and I still don’t come up for air when talking. Some things don’t change.)
So as the days meld into one another, we commemorate each mishap of bad parenting with our “Bad Parent of the Day” Award. I guess I do probably win it more than your dad, but considering I’m on more parenting duty, I think the balance on weighted means would be in his favour. Or disfavour depending on how you view it.
Today’s winner? Well, I can’t think of it. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Or, if you count letting your baby eat of the floor as a bad thing I probably shouldn’t have fed you the cucumber you dropped on the footpath in the Valley this morning, then Me. The footpaths there are not your average cleanliness, somewhat below… In the scheme of things, minor.
Three days ago? Me. You know about the whole carrot intolerancething? Well, I went to cook more food for you and found the freezer cubes we use to freeze your food in full: of chicken stew. So I dutifully emptied them all into the sink and then flushed them down the loo. Thinking all the while, “Gee, what a waste. It’s not the food that bothers me so much as the love and time your dad put into cooking it”. And it’s not like I’m ever going to cook you chicken stew (pescetarian avoiding meat cooking at all costs). So it was a bit special.
Dumb di dumb di dumb. Well, it turned out your Dad had already lovingly thrown out all the offensive carrot-containing stew, and cooked you a whole new batch. Which was exactly what I threw out. Mmm. Bad parent of the day award: Mum.
Love you boopie baby
mum
