Not Me!

Here is a story that someone like me would never do. Not me!

So Jax and I went to the rec center as we usually do on Thursdays, and unsurprisingly because I'm so on top of my game, we were the first ones there. There was a group of older ladies "Sweating to the Oldies" in the gym so Jax and I hung out in the lobby area where there is a foosball table and air hockey. Since I am such a vigilant mama, and not at all tired from lugging around a 36-week-old fetus, I would never actually play Jax in air hockey. No way! That would require him to balance precariously on a stepstool and use gross and fine motor skills that he has yet to master. Who would do such a thing?

So since I am so vigilant and would never let my child risk life or limb for a few minutes' distraction, he would never then fall off said stepstool to go retrieve the puck I was too tired to fetch, bite his lip, resulting in a sad, bloody little guy. Never! Of course, people would have arrived by then, so it would be even more mortifying because there would have been witnesses to my negligent parenting, so I would never let him play air hockey while "monitoring" from the other side of the table. Not me!

After rushing him to the bathroom, apologizing profusely, letting him suck on a germy, wet paper towel (which would probably result in him getting the cold he is suffering from now), I would not then try to hide my utter embarrassment by admitting to everyone in sight and within earshot that it was totally, completely, and utterly my fault, so as to convince them that this kind of negligence is not something that normally happens in our house, hopefully fending off calls to the local authorities questioning whether or not Jax is suffering from child abuse--not me! I wouldn't have to apologize for a thing, because Jax would have been silently playing with a Rubik's Cube or solving world peace or something noble and not in the least bit dangerous.

Not my son and not me!

And then, when another mom tried to make me feel better by telling me that she left her two-month-old son in his bucket in a parking lot and then almost drove away, I wouldn't judge her as being a completely negligent, abusive mom who needed to be taken out back behind the rec department and shot. Not me! I would know that she was only trying to make me feel better in the "we've all been there" kind of way, not that my son almost knocking his teeth out is any better than her almost forgetting her newborn. Not me! Let she whose slate is clean cast the first stone, and that is not me! My slate is dirty, dirty, dirty, so of course I wouldn't judge a perfectly nice stranger. Who almost forgot her baby. See? Having your kid fall off a stepstool seems almost acceptable after that one. But it doesn't matter, because I would never do anything like that, anyway! Good thing, because that would be embarrassing.