This evening I feel like a mom failure, with a big, capital F. Malachi and I attended his buddy's one year birthday party, a joyous occasion to be sure. The party was held in a room at a park. It was tight corners, and there was not room in the room for baby's play. I held Malachi on my lap for most of the time, only to let him crawl on the floor a few times with my eye on him. At one point, a lady almost stepped on him -- (failure number one.) "Good thing, I looked down before I took a step" she said loudly. Yes, good thing. And I get the point: "get your baby off the floor."
My baby is now quite stout. In the past 2 months, he has really packed on the pounds (especially in the belly region.) It's no small feat to carry him anywhere, much less feed him and myself lunch single handedly out out of disposable paper plates. After painstakingly cutting up fruit and cheese into small bites for him, he proceeded to try and turn the paper plate upside down- his new favorite game. This wasn't woking. I then tried to give him some noodles from the noodle soup. He spit them out. I then gave him wild mushroom soup-- he delighted and cooed for more. And at this point (failure number two) I just kept feeding him wild mushroom soup because A: he was finally eating something (without trying to throw it on the floor) and B: he was sitting contentedly. If my transgressions had ended there, I don't think I would have felt the need to write this post. But they don't.
Jump ahead with me to one hour later. I have been juggling holding Malachi and letting him crawl with trying to sneak bites of food for myself. It's now time for cake and ice cream. I am still hungry, so you bet I am going to enjoy a sugary piece of cake. As I hold Malachi on my lap and get ready to sink my teeth into glorious marble cake, he starts reaching for my bowl. I push it further away, and he looks up at me and whines. Oh fine-- one little bite won't hurt? I give him a small taste of the ice cream. He loves it, and he is sitting contentedly on my lap. Sold! I give him several more bites of ice cream in between sneaking bites of the delicious cake.
Jump with me to 5:30. The party has been over for awhile, and we are at home. Malachi is crawling happily about the living room. Then I hear him grunt and hear the gurgle from his stomach. I change his pants only to find an explosion. Poop up to his shoulder with chunks of wild mushroom soup laughing at me. And I feel so terrible. I allowed my own "convenience" dictate what I fed my child, and now he has diarrhea. Lesson learned- I have failed, and I will not make that mistake again. But the thing is, I know that more and different mistakes await me as a mother. I am only human, and failure is part of my humanity. So I roll up my sleeves, wipe away the poop, and prepare for our next great adventure: this could get messy.
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