Worst Mom of the Year Award

This week, we celebrated Mini Me's birthday with her class. It's a Montessori school, so they do things a bit differently. The teacher asked me to talk about when Paris was born. I did great. I told them about how she was the most beautiful baby girl I had ever seen. And she was. At first.

Then the teacher asked about memories of Paris when she was 0-1 year old. This is where things went astray. Cue the crickets. 27 pairs of 3-6 yr old eyes were on me. Mini Me looked to me adoringly, waiting for some wonderful story.

"She cried a lot."

That was all I could come up with. I couldn't think of a single good, positive thing about Mini Me's 1st year of life. I was proud of myself for not telling them about taping her pacifier to her mouth. (Oh. Did you miss that one? Details at the end of this post).

The teacher tried to help me. She asked if Mini Me had walked or had teeth in her first year.

"Mini Me didn't walk or have teeth before her 1st birthday. In fact, she was a bald baby."

I was dying. Fast.

When we got to year 1 to 2, I excitedly exclaimed that Mini Me walked, got teeth and grew hair. I had to stop myself at that. I didn't want to mention the 'ugly phase' or how she was at the doctor's office with some ailment or the other.

Had I received the email from Mini Me's teacher explaining the process, I would have been prepared with lots of wonderful things to say about my precious 4 yr old daughter. As it was, I stumbled through and made myself come across as the most insensitive mother in the world.

I'm hoping Mini Me never remembers the things her bumbling idiot of a mother said this classroom birthday.

And now........

The Pacifier Story.

Mini Me cried.a.lot. Still does, actually. Well, what you don't know is that her pacifier would not stay in her mouth. And the girl WANTED her pacifier!!

If that pacifier fell out, Mini Me screamed. Not cried. Screamed like she had been hit. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't drive 5 minutes to church or the grocery store.

One particularly challenging night, around 3:00 am, I begged God to show me what to do. Medical tape came to mind. It was perfect. No pain when you remove it and it doesn't leave red marks/lines. I left enough room for her to spit up safely without choking. I did clear it with her pediatrician.

One morning, walking into church, I ran into an older couple from our Sunday School class. They were excited to see Mini Me. I removed the blanket covering her car seat. They gave odd looks. A few steps down the hall, I saw the wife of the Children's Ministry pastor. As she whizzed by, she said: "Hi WidneyWoman. Cute baby. You might want to remove the tape."

And that, is why we are not saving for our children's college. We are saving for their therapy.