The Baby Got Cold-Cocked… and other “Bad Mommy” Confessions

OK, so what with my OCD and perfectionism and narcissism and all, it’s tough for me to admit that sometimes I “fall short” of the Mommy Ideal.

Anyway, it’s time for me to come clean. I have been carrying the burden of these “incidents” for almost 3.5 months now… I am not a perfect mommy. Sometimes, in fact, I am a Bad Mommy. Like the time I forgot to buckle the straps when I put JD in his car seat. (Yikes!!)

Or the time that I made a bottle w/ too much formula powder and he threw it all up. (Sorry, buddy! It was 4am and my mind was cloudy. Ok, ok, it was 8pm, but my mind was still cloudy!!)

And then there was the time when I was holding JD and I dropped the bottle. In my haste to catch it before it fell onto the floor and came back up covered in long, black dog hairs, I shot my hand out…and scratched JD square across his forehead with my thumbnail. (Man alive, you have never heard such a toe-curling screech!)

And, oh yeah, speaking of dog hairs, there was that unfortunate incident at the pediatrician’s….

JD had to go back to see the pediatrician after he had “failed to thrive” during his first week.(Because I am such a bad mommy that I failed in the most basic, natural, essential area of mothering- breastfeeding. Never mind that I had Achalasia, a disease which had me hospitalized and prevented me from eating or drinking for over 10 weeks, and my body could barely being sustain itself, let alone feed a baby…) Anyway, I was sitting there in the pediatrician's office, basking in her full, unadulterated judgment that I failed to adequately nourish my child, when she noticed that his belly button, which had just fallen off that morning, was still “oozing” a little. Not to worry, she assured me, it is quite common and can be easily remedied w/ a little silver nitrate. She put some on a Q-tip and prepared to daub my son, then she suddenly stopped and peered intently at his little midriff. “Is that a dog hair in his belly button?” she asked, voice positively dripping with disdain, as she leaned down and gingerly plucked a long, black dog hair from the only oozing spot on my baby’s tiny body. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die!

Oh My, that pediatrician sure thinks that I am the Worlds.Worst.Mother... At JD’s two-month Well Child visit, she ran down the “milestone” checklist. I proudly assured her that my son was a superstar in all areas, and that, yes, he sure does lift his head 45 degrees when placed on his stomach! “Oh, really, let’s just see for ourselves”, she insinuated, flipping my baby over onto his tummy. “Show her what you can do, buddy”, I encouraged JD, who remained steadfastly face-planted on the exam table. She “humored” me for about five minutes, while JD drooled and snuffled, face-down into the tissue paper. I could just hear her sneering, “Better luck next time."

At least she wasn’t around The Night The Baby Got Cold-Cocked. As you maybe can tell, Dave and I share an irreverent sense of humor. Every night, when we get JD ready for bed and feed him his final bottle, we try to “fill him up” with as much formula as he will drink, hoping against hope that he will sleep longer. We joke that the final bottle is going to “cold-cock the baby”- a TKO, if you will.

One night, I left JD’s nighttime bottle sitting there on the changing table as I got him dressed and ready for bed. The poor kid was pretty tired, and when he gets tired, his motions tend to get a little spastic. Sure enough, he flung his arms up suddenly, knocking over the bottle, which hit him THUNK on the head. A look of utter shock crossed his face, and then he just started to bawl. And I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh. Because that bottle really did cold-cock the baby… And because I know that, despite it all, I Really Am a Good Mother. (And I always triple-check his car seat buckles now!!)