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A friend of mine once forgot to buckle her daughter into her car seat, and although she later laughed about finding her daughter sitting contentedly on the floor of the car, I remember thinking a big “tsk-tsk” in my mind as I silently gloated about how I would never do anything like that. About four months later I was taking a quick trip to the store when I heard my daughter in the back seat yelling, “Hold on tight, Mommy!” I glanced in the rear view mirror and was horrified to see her holding onto the door, unbuckled from the car seat and happy as could be. Yep, I had forgotten to buckle her in. I pulled over and buckled her in, my heart beating like mad as I thought about what might have happened.

The thing about parenting is that just when you feel like you’re doing it right, something happens to knock you back down to the status of Inept Parent. I think it’s nature’s design; if we get too sure of ourselves we might not parent as well as we should.

A couple of months ago I read an article in a magazine by a mom who had left the house with two different shoes on. The author made it sound like that was a common occurrence, just another silly thing that sleep-deprived moms did. I took great pride in knowing that I had never set foot out of the house with two different shoes on. At least I had not sunk so low.

You can guess what happened a week or so later. At least I could see the humor in the situation, and luckily nobody seemed to notice the two different shoes on my feet.

Tags: car seat, Parenting, stress