Velcome back,
The Man and I managed an extreme act of bad parenting* the other day. In the interests of public health and safety, I decided it would be remiss of me not to share it with you, my faithful RRSAHMer’s..
The observant amongst you may have noticed this Tweet.
Or, ya know, not, because not a single one of you replied to it. Whatever. Allow me to set the scene.
The Bump, twelve months old and deceptively logical behind her innocent facade, is in her Antilop. Which is Swedish, IKEA dialect, for ‘high chair’.
Not securely strapped in. Despite the sticker on the bottom of the Antilop that warns against such idiocy. I know. See, this is where the bad parenting part kicks in.
Go on, call me names. Whatever you have to say to me, it’s no worse than I’ve already said to myself.
OK, I hope we all feel better now. As I was saying, deceptively logical baby not properly strapped into the Antilop. Airy fairy mother (that’s me) writing my daily list of sh*t-that-will-not-get-done, with my back turned to both the Antilop and the deceptively logical child. My airy-fairy list making is interrupted by whinging. I turn (thank goodness) and.. well.. I’ll let the diagram explain. Click to enlarge, for the full, shocking effect.
Seriously. Really. Truly. I turn, and my child is suspended between high chair Antilop and kitchen table.
Ohholyf*ckingmotherofallthatisholy.
I don’t think I need to tell you, I got there quickly enough to avoid permanent injury to the Bump. Just. Crisis averted by mere, fragile seconds.
Surely that would be enough for one day…? Not in the Purple House, it seems.
Fast forward two hours. The Man is in the kitchen with both children, super-gluing together one of the Chop’s broken toys back together. The Chop is two and a half years old, and as cheeky as little boy’s can get.
And, yuhuh. I said “superglue”. I think you can see where this is going.
I decided, given the illusion of control the Man had goin’ on, to sneakily sneak out the front door for a sneaky cigarette. Bad move. That’ll learn me. I return through the front door to the sound of “Don’t shut your mouth Chop! Don’t shut your mouth!”.
Ohwhatthef*ckhashappenednow?!
Long story, short? The Chop managed to keep his mouth open, and the Man manged to remove the superglue. Without taking any delicate toddler skin with it. Huzzah! Kind of.
I know. Extremely lucky, all four of us. Things could have been much worse.
And the moral to the story, my lovelies? Given that this is a public health and safety announcement, after all…
* And before any virtual knickers get twisted- I know, I’m not a ‘bad parent’. Just had a day of ‘bad parenting’. Subtle difference, see?
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
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Your picture was too funny! Now, see, it's those kinds of days that are made for wine drinking at the end of it all.
Getting caught up on your posts. So sorry to hear about your neighbor ordeal too.
Ah well, they say lead by example, but i always think learn through experience. With that hard floor, she wouldn't do it twice now would she…
joking aside, these things always come in pairs, and i don't know a single mum who doesn't have at least one pair of nasties every month.
M2Mx
This is fantastic! It makes me feel so much better about the Little Lion's almost-successful-houdini-trick in his car seat this morning. That's right, while I was driving, the little bugger managed to get both arms out of his harness and was lunging for the headrest of the seat infront of him when I managed to pull over, heart-a-racing!
Nx
Aeyyyyy! You write about this surprisingly calmly (although is that a thinly veiled, justified, sense of hysteria I detect?). Superglue in his mouth? And the Antilop Incident…. Major freak-out material. BUT there'd be few of us out there who haven't done that (not strapped in).
haha oh there's been many incidents of this sort in our house, always ending in "how the f did we manage to avoid that catastrophe!?"
Soon as Mr C (21 months) is finished eating, he just throws one leg over, then the other, and shimmy's down. First couple of times he landed with a thump, but then he got used to it
And of course helpful big sister occasionally gets him a chair…
Pfft! It's not that long of a drop to the floor
omg. has baby only done this once. miss 1 has done that heaps. , to get my attention . i strap her in but she is affectionately called "crazytown" she did the same thing in her pusher too. while i was looking for shoes. still the highchair (same as yours) was one of my best purchases!!
Right there with you babe
hahaha. Never entrust a man to be able to successfully complete the simpilest of tasks with a child present. The child or the task (possibly both) will end up broken! LOL.
And FWIW i'm on child #2 and i've never EVER strapped either child in : I say it was your awesome parenting instincts that kicked in and got you to turn back around at that second.
Oh, I'm sorry…but just had to laugh!
EXCELLENT advice though. Excellent.
May I also add that one should never leave a plastic folder on top of a toaster, so that the 3yo can gain access to said toaster, put toast in, toast it, and replace plastic folder and therefore burn plastic in to toaster and almost burn down house?
That is all.
I'm sorry, but that picture you drew had me in stitches. Thanks for the belly laugh…sorry to find humour in such inappropriate subject matter! xx
I love reading your posts!
This brought back memories of having days like that when my children were younger!
Kids, even with being strapped in, are little Houdini's!
Your little acrobat should meet my little acrobat and while they're conversing ways to bungee jump off the lounge, your Mr "I-put-everything-in-my-mouth" should meet my Miss "I-put-everything-in-my-mouth". Match made in heaven, yeah? Hahaha
Oooops!!
Nothing like that has ever happened to my two (because I choose to block out all memories of close calls and near misses!!)
Kids are monkeys and men are, well, men! lol
just another day
I fractured my skull falling out of a high chair when I was a baby. I can't even start to list how often I've had near misses with my own kids.. they move so fast
Oh good lord! We should all get hazard pay for parenting, yes? It is definitely not for the faint of heart!
And you and I are just alike in this respect. Every little thing I think I've effed up… I instantly turn around and confess it. Generally on my blog!
OY. OMG. And, of course, and only because all tragedy was in fact averted, ROFL.
I will say, there have been times when if a child or five of mine had CLOSED his or her mouth with the superglue, I might have waited for a while before trying to figure out how to fix that one…
LOL! That happens to parents all the time! We all drop the ball so to speak once in a while. This was normal!
argh. i had the antilop as sole baby chair from that age to ..well until his bum was too big for it really. i did not strap him in all the time and i would have turned my back. one day he just climbed out AND down and strolled over to me, i felt a bit bad, you could imagine..
superglue is an often used magic in our household and i have instilled so much fear in my son to prevent him to touch the tube that he hardly looks at it now. uhm. but i still hide it too. glad nothing happend there.. we're all just human..
What a clever little girl you have!
I'm pretty sure us Mum's have all had one of those "Whoops" moments, and learned from them pretty quickly too! ha ha
x
I don't have children, but I assume stuff happens. And, men have little sense…superglue?! That is too funny.
Oh lovely girl. No virtual knickers in a knot here. (We had that high chair. Lexie would crawl out of it.)
Does it make you feel better to know that over the years we have done very similar things? *blush*. K actually fell out of the highchair when younger! he seemed to bounce though, my heart did also! I think I got a few more grey hairs that day. The amount of substances they have gotten into when they weren't supposed to would make you turn grey! Let's just say that it is very lucky we don't use quick set concrete around here! :p . I whole heartedly agree with your disclaimer also Lori xo
OMFG!!! Joisus what a day!
both things could have gone SO much worse. I have had similar moments… I'm too scared to write about them.
The Bump is definitely looking the worse for wear in that photo, Lori. I'm a bit worried… x
I totally missed that tweet! The bump nearly gave herself a bump LOL! Lucky she's ok though. And the chop… Maybe he was just trying to give you some peace & quiet
The never-ending crises of motherhood!