You know ESPN Sportcenter’s Top Ten Plays of the Week? Someone recently introduced me to their NOT Top Ten plays, which they air occasionally. Athletic bloopers - some mild, some of epic proportions – that never fail to make me giggle.
Well, in the back of my head, I also have a NOT Top Ten Parenting Plays.
I wish I could say they air only occasionally, but truth be told they can haunt you if you let them.
And I wish I could say there are only ten, but I seem to have access to an unlimited playlist that keeps growing the longer I am a parent.
The ONLY way I’ve found so far to combat the parenting guilt that often accompanies those moments is to SHARE them – with others, with myself, with friends, with (trusted) family members.
Because you know what? People usually giggle, sometimes uncontrollably, while simultaneously nodding their heads in vigorous recognition.
Sometimes, sharing starts a cascade of NOT Top Ten parenting moments that is both hysterical and healing. That’s the best kind.
Often these moments start innocently enough, with a pinch of hurry or a dash of exhaustion/distractedness/too-much-on-our-plates thrown in, but culminate in a story of chaos…one that makes you want to shrink into the ground, except you can’t because you have to move on to the next parenting moment.
You know the moments I’m talking about, right?
So, friends, today I share with you one of the top hits of my own NOT Top Ten Parenting Plays.
I share it with you not to berate or belittle myself, but in the hopes that it makes even one of you giggle and nod in vigorous recognition of the crazy situations we often get ourselves into during these crowded years.
And that you will be slightly more gentle with yourself as a parent the next time one of these moments sneaks up on you.
Shortly after my dear friend passed away unexpectedly when our girls were six, I took my daughter, this buddy (we’ll call her Callie), and my son (age 2) with me food shopping at our very large, very popular, usually-filled-with-people-we-know grocery store.
While in the produce section, right next to the restrooms, my daughter and Callie told me they needed to use the bathroom. I let them go together and told them to find me in this section when they came out.
(My first mistake? Oh no. My first mistake was thinking I had the energy and focus to pull off shopping with three kids in my current state of mind. But we need food, right??)
My son – who was safely buckled into the front of the grocery cart (at least I did one thing right!) - and I wandered a few displays over to the exotic fruit section where I could let him touch different textured fruit while we waited for the girls.
While we were engrossed exploring rambutan fruit (see above photo), my phone began buzzing in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway. On the other end was my daughter’s shaky voice: “Momma, where are you??”
I looked up, and only two displays away my daughter and Callie were standing with tear stained cheeks next to a very kind looking older woman. My daughter was holding what I could only presume to be this woman’s phone.
“Oh dear, I’m right here, hon,” I said as I waved and started walking toward them. Without my son or the cart into which he was strapped.
(Uh oh. Defensive parenting guilt rearing its ugly head as I write: Only two displays away…honest! And I could see everything because each display was only 2 feet tall. IF I had been looking.)
I hugged the girls, thanked the woman profusely, and told my daughter she had done exactly the right thing that we’d talked about so many times before if we ever got separated.
All of this took 30 seconds, max.
When I turned around to go back to our cart and my son, it was surrounded by a group of shoppers.
“Hmmm...” I thought.
And then I saw the first rambutan fruit launched. “What the…??” as I picked up the pace toward our cart and my son.
Another rambutan fruit flew out from the crowd. This one smacked a passing shopper on the side of the ear. And those things HURT.
As I finally closed in on the cart, the full picture crystallized in astoundingly embarrassing clarity.
My son had emptied an entire display of rambutan fruit by hurling them (he was two, but he’s been a gifted thrower since birth) at unwitting passerby, mostly missing but sometimes connecting in what could only be a very surprising dollop of pain. The rambutan fruit display was empty.
“Who’s child is this?!?” one of the people in the crowd around the cart asked. The kind old woman who had lent my lost daughter her phone still looked on from two displays away.
I cannot tell a lie: for a split moment, I was tempted to keep silent and pretend I was an amused observer like the rest of the crowd while slinking toward the back exit. But sometimes you have to up your parenting game and actually claim your children as your own. This was one of those times. Plus, if I hadn’t, my honest daughter would undoubtedly have claimed him as her brother (she’s not a teenager yet).
I stepped forward with a bit of a forced laugh to lighten the mood and trick people into thinking their judgment of the situation was far too severe, “He’s mine – so sorry! Can’t step away for a moment with a two year old. Thankfully he’s strapped in (side note: what better time to point out the one good thing you did in a complete fail moment to a group of onlookers, right??) Hope no one was hurt!”
We picked up as many rambutans as we could find. A dear woman in the crowd squeezed my shoulder and said, “It happens to the best of us, honey! Good thing he’s cute,” which almost made me cry.
When the rambutans were back in their display and the crowd had dispersed, I took a deep breath and decided it was time to cut my losses. I unbuckled my son, pulled him out of the cart, held the girls’ hands, and decided we were going out to eat. At an anonymous drive-through. Where no one could get lost, throw things (at least at anyone other than family) or recognize me.
Looking back, I can giggle about this. No one got hurt (minus a rambutan fruit bruise or two) or lost (for more than 30 seconds). I am absolutely positive that, at the time, Callie’s practical-joke loving mom was guffawing from beyond.
It definitely qualifies for the NOT Top Ten Parenting Plays highlight reel. So far. Who knows? It may get bumped soon.