It goes on and on . .

I have such a headache. It’s the mom thing again. I’m afraid the brother she is living with is having a really hard time with having her there lately. He is ill and this round of treatment is kicking his butt and he is crabby and impatient. I’ll be honest – it’s really hard to be patient with her sometimes when you’re not sick, so I get it.

Trying to find out if she is eligible for Medicaid for an adult daycare program, or maybe some in-home care is a nightmare. Especially from a different state. When I suggested she come here by me she says “I’m comfortable here.” I’m guessing my brothers and I are going to have to decide what to do and she is going to have to go along with it. She can’t be alone and my brother can’t continue being her caretaker when he has all he can do to take care of himself right now.

Tonight? I’m going to take some ibuprophen and check my lottery ticket.

Worst Mom EVER.

Stimey had an incident yesterday that left her feeling a bit bruised and battered in the parenting sense, and I know we’ve all had things happen that made us feel less than the perfect Mrs. Brady. And the ones who think they are the perfect Mrs. Brady? They’re kidding themselves.

We do the best job we can as parents but kids don’t come with a manual and we make mistakes. Things happen when we’re tired and overwhelmed but for the most part we don’t damage our kids. They are resilient and generally grow up just fine in spite of our blunders.

The good far outweighs the bad and we forgive ourselves for our missteps because we are human. Then because we blog, we tell our stories and we laugh because the kids are wonderful in spite of the things we do sometimes.

When my son Andy was in 5^th grade we got a note from his school saying he had failed the eye test. Really? Not a big deal, he’s probably having a little trouble seeing the board in class. We took him to the eye doctor for a complete exam and sure enough, he needed glasses.

Andy always sat close to the TV but I thought it was a kid thing; don’t all kids want to practically press their noses against the screen? When he held a book he held it up and in front of his face instead of looking down at it in a relaxed fashion like most kids do. I thought that was a quirk carried over from when he was a toddler. He learned to read at 2 and a half and I figured the way he held a book was simply a habit from early on that just “stuck”. I really didn’t think too much of it.

When they were ready we took Andy to get his glasses. It seemed so uneventful. Andy was not a kid to make a big deal out of many things. He let the technician check to make sure the glasses fit well, answered her questions about how well he could see, and waited quietly while she made a few adjustments and we were on our way. Again, no big deal.

In the car on the way home Andy started reading every single thing he could see through the car window. His voice was getting higher pitched and louder and frankly it was getting a bit annoying. I was about to ask him to ‘knock it off’ – but before I had the chance - in a voice filled with excitement and awe he asked “WOW. Does EVERYBODY see like this?!!???”

Okay? Worst Mom ever.

So what have you done that made you feel like the worst parent in the world?