Tell me I’m not alone in my incessant string of mom fails.

Tell me.

TELL ME.

Like the sterling silver fork we found in my toddler’s onesie when he awoke one morning. This fork spent all night smuggled in the pant leg of my son’s fleece footie pajamas.

Or the recent time at the zoo, when I responsibly decided not to buckle my toddler in the jogger.

As he attempted to rebelliously climb out, his foot got caught in the front tire, and I sling-shotted him, airborne for what felt like hours, onto the pavement in front of a crowd.

The chorus of concerned “oohs” from justifiably judgmental onlookers still echoes in my head to this day.

“He’s fine.”

I silently prayed he wouldn’t cry because it would make me look even worse than I already did, which meant I cared more about rehabilitating my parenting ego than the well-being of my rambunctious child.

Just for the record, he did not cry.

So many fails. So many.

You’ve had all of this happen before, yes?

Of course you haven’t.

Then you’ve surely helped teach biblical curriculum to young, impressionable six-and-unders and had a particularly precocious little chicken tell you something very unexpected.

Teacher: “Tell me some ways you hear from God?”

Child: “What if, we all paint our private parts?”

Any iota of maturity I had gained in my adulthood was wrecked.

But in my defense, when I looked over at my usually more mature and collected husband, his shoulders were shaking and his face was completely red and distorted from trying to regain his composure.

Unfortunately for me and Drew, all other adults in the room appropriately responded to the child.

Drew and I have since been demoted to working with the less impressionable, more babe-like children.

But you would have laughed too.

To my chagrin, I have it on good evidence that our Andy will probably be that child in the room, making bizarre comments.

This is in large part because of who his parents are.

Or really, who his dad is.

You see, Drew finds immense joy in teaching Andy comical phrases.

Drew’s latest accomplishment is teaching Andy to repeatedly say, “Mama potty.”

Andy walks around randomly saying this.

Very weird.

Although I am convinced it could be much worse.

Recently, I walked into the room as Andy awoke from his nap, and Andy boisterously chimed, “Hi, Paige.”

Not okay.

I’m certain Drew put him up to this.  I refuse to answer my child calling me by my first name.

Well, even if you can’t relate to my recent mom fails, I’m absolutely confident you’ve undertaken extreme measures to contain your vivacious two-year-old.

Right?

Right?

How about bathing your child for hours on end to isolate his tornadic behavior?

Multiple times a day?

Phew.

Good thing I’ve never done this, either.

But on the off chance you have, I bet you did it during the dead of winter, when Dad had to work late, and your angel-baby was behaving like a psycho-troll after being cooped up all day due to frigid temperatures, and it got dark at 4:00 PM, and you were still in the same pajamas from the night before, and you burned dinner again, and you had watched Finding Dory 19 times already, and your pets’ heads were falling off. . .

Not that I’d personally know why you pulled the bathtub trick.

Merely hypothesizing, here.

Withhold your applause, please.

Although I have to believe I’m not alone in my parenting fails.

And if I am, don’t you dare say so.

Instead, I desperately need you to gently coo that Andy is going to be just fine.

Just fine. 😉