And the Worst Mother of the Year Award goes to… ME

**I’d like to take this moment to point out that this is my 100th post!!!**

HAHA! So if after reading about my public mommy blunder, on a very frustrating day, you don’t think I’m a shoe-in for this award then I feel bad for the mommy I’m runner-up to. Because those mommy-mishaps, especially the public ones, really hurt the heart. However, this pain that we feel during such moments is also a very validating sign proving the love a mother has for her child.

If we didn’t feel that pain, didn’t almost hate ourselves for those mistakes, and just sloughed them off as no big deal, what sort of person would we be? Granted you won’t see me purposely dropping my child in public just so I can give myself a pat on the back, but I can promise you that because I love my babies so much I’d throw myself in front of a train to save them from the perils of the world, I feel the sting I feel when I make a mistake, especially at their expense.

Unfortunately mistakes are a part of Motherhood and raising our children. I’m still trying to find that magical book that explains to me the exact perfect way to deal with any situation, but it’s not out there. But then, if we really had that book don’t you think it would take away a huge part of life and why we live it? We’re not perfect. Our children, though we try to raise them as so, will not be perfect. Life just wasn’t made to be that way. Living and making the mistakes we make, and how we learn from them, is part of what makes all this craziness worth the walk.

So when it happens to you, and you trip on a crack in the sidewalk of life, what do you do?
I have a girlfriend that I often take solace in. (phone in one hand, glass of wine in the other) I’ve known her since high school, so to admit our failures to one another is nothing new for us. She, a mother of 3 girls and 1 step-son, and I have many times called each other to take turns debating who is the worst mother. But not in a way that beats each other, or ourselves, up. It’s in the act of recognizing that we are human, being able to talk about it openly to someone who’s been-there-done-that and lived to tell about it. And laugh, or giggle, or, in the least, just feel a small sense of relief knowing we’re not alone and we’re not at all the failures that we sometimes feel like.

How do you cope?