proof that I am quite possibly the world's worst mother...and that the redhead needs protective headgear

Throughout history there have been a slew of terrible mothers...

Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother ~ The Mom in Pink Floyd's "The Wall" ~ Mrs. Robinson from "The Graduate" ~ Margaret White in "Carrie" ~ Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest"

I think however, that this week, I take the cake.

I actually Googled "World's Worst Mother Award" to see if I could find a picture of an actual award. I found no such picture, but if you will, allow me to make my case for worst mother of the week or maybe year, or even maybe millennium.

Tuesday evening, the redhead was playing in a kitchen chair. This is something fairly new that he has discovered and he loves climbing up in them - sometimes standing, sometimes sitting. This particular time he was sitting, I believe. Of course I had turned around for something else in the kitchen (and normally I don't have to watch him like a hawk when he's in the chair). I wheeled back around just in time to see him falling flat on his back on the kitchen floor, banging his head HARD in the process. I immediately picked him up, holding him close and whispering soothing sounds in his ear. He grabbed for "bear-bear" (his little silky blanket) and said in a pathetic voice, "dot-dot", which meant he wanted to rock-rock (in the rocking chair).

I did call the doctor (who happened to be out of town) and checked on Web MD for signs of a concussion. Turns out, the redhead was fine, thank God.

My second worst mom of the week moment happened just a little while ago whilst we were playing at the playground across the street. There is a HUGE slide that we love to go down. When Mr. Baseball goes to the park with us, one of us always climbs the ladder with the redhead and the other catches the redhead at the bottom.

Mr. Baseball wasn't with us today.

In my humble "mother of a 2 year old" opinion, I thought he would be fine if I sent him down the slide by himself. All the other times he'd been down, the slide had not been slick and he'd stuttered his way down to the bottom.

Take cooler temperatures and slick athletic pants and combine that with the cool metal of the slide. The moment I let him go, I knew I had a made a terrible mistake. With lightning speed, he whizzed down the slide, flying off the end and landing on his back in the dust. After he recovered the breath that had been stolen from him on his way down, he totally started to cry. I quickly slid down the slide and picked him up, brushed the dust off of him, and apologized profusely for letting him go down himself. He only cried for a moment and then ran off to some other toddler torture device also known as playground equipment.

He did end up going down the slide again, only this time I had little Caroline hold him at the top for me while I ran back down the stairs to catch him at the bottom.

With any luck, I haven't damaged him for life. Hopefully he'll extend forgiveness my way for being a terrible mother.

I'll be lucky if he makes it to 3 in one piece - and it is my fervent prayer that I'll never be like her...

Lula, go ahead and send a helmet.