Fitting for July 1st, the sun came out in Seattle today.  And since it broke 65 obviously we had to play in the kiddie pool in the backyard.  While I did put both of my children in swimsuits today, I did not bother to put a swim diaper on the small child because A. they are expensive and B. I thought it was totally safe.

Upon getting the pool filled Harmon immediately asked for cups to dump water.  I naturally complied, and when I got into the pool the kids gave me a bath.  Water is poured all over my head, face, and body.  After a few minutes I think I smell something bad smelling.  I don’t smell it again and forget about it.  Two minutes later I smell it again and realize it is coming from someone very close to me.  At this point I weep openly and declare the pool closed.

2. Not using a shopping cart with previously mentioned children and thinking you can carry the 1-year-old and that the 2-year-old will miraculously not pull everything off the shelf/run for his life.

3. Letting your 2-year-old son run naked.  Seriously.

But chances are no one will get food poisoning, the bed will remain dry, the baby won’t fall, and the couch will stay clean. At least I hope so.

Although I want to die thinking about this, somehow it makes me feel just a bit better that I’m not always the worst parent of the two of us.

On Tuesday while parked in a parking lot with our children playing happily in the back seat, Esther lamented aloud that we couldn’t drive across the parking lot to the Burger King without strapping our children into their seats, because it would be 10000 times easier. Instead of doing this we went our separate ways, and I put my children into my car like normal: let Harmon climb into his seat, shut the door, put Sammy in her seat and strap her in, return to Harmon and strap him in, drive home. Except I missed a step. Upon pulling into my driveway and opening the door to get Harmon out of the car I found it really easy to get him out, as he was not strapped into his car seat at all. Did I mention the part about driving 30 minutes on the freeway? Worst mother ever, I know. But miraculously he survived and didn’t even get out of his seat.

Today is Friday. Friday pretty much always means more tired because it is the end of the week, having had little to no rest because of a kind husband who works during the week to pay for our unused car seats. Today as I loaded my children into the car in the parking lot I followed the usual routine. About 4 minutes away, through city traffic, I hear Harmon saying “it’s ok! it’s ok!” to which I reply “yep, it’s ok!” because who knows what he was talking about? I was just glad he thought it was ok. Next thing I know there is a Harmon head right next to mine saying “it’s ok!” Despite almost having a heart attack and crashing the car at the same time, I managed to pull the car into a parking lot and properly restrain my child, much to his disappointment.

You can bring me my Parent of the Year Award now, I think I’ve earned it.

And like any good parent, I took a picture before getting my child to safety.

1. Give 11.5 month old child bag of chocolate chips to shake to the music while riding in the cart
2. Don’t mind when child chews on bag of chocolate chips because he always does that
3. Look down to see chocolate all over child’s face
4. Remove bag from child, wipe face
5. Listen to child scream with displeasure

I swear you will think it’s as awesome as I did.

My poor child was trying to scale the fridge while Aaron and I stood nice and close to make sure he didn’t die. He did indeed fall from his super high standing height (ok, not that high, and he does it all the time without harm) and managed to fall back onto his behind and slowly his head made contact with the carpet. He also hit my foot on the way, but we were surprised by the crying. I picked him up to comfort him (even though I thought he was being a bit dramatic) and a couple of minutes later nice red scratches appeared and it all made sense.

That’s right. My child fell and cut his head open on my toenails (the middle and big toe, in case you really wanted to know). That Parent of the Year Award is totally mine.