What Not to Say When Your Sister Busts Her Lip Open in the Grocery Store

I had a rough weekend.

Our weekend begins on Friday evening, when Hubby leaves for his Guy Weekend away with friends from high school. For a Mom, every "scary" story starts with the husband leaving. Because, friends? Can we all agree? Trouble finds us the moment we are alone and without support!

This could not be more true for me. Hubby and I are rarely apart. I seriously could not give more props to single parents and parents with a spouse that travels a lot for work. I have a newfound respect for the years my mom was a single parent. I always had a sense it was hard. But now that I have kids, I have a better sense for the trials and loneliness that can come with handling kids all by yourself.

I'm a wimp. I only had to do it for the weekend.

Anyway. Back to the story.

The last time Hubby went away, which was last April, Chica had her second bout with vomiting. We'd never encountered this before. And I woke up in the middle of the night (slightly disoriented, as the power had gone out for a few hours shortly after Hubby left), coughing. I ran down to witness the coughing turning into vomiting. This happened three more times in the course of an hour. All the while, I was making sure Bug was asleep and okay. I spent the rest of the weekend quarantined and deciding whether or not to cancel the Open House we had scheduled for that Sunday (we did).

Fast forward 12 months. Hubby leaves and I am determined to have a Super Fun Girls weekend with my daughters. I think I secretly wanted to make up for the awful weekend we had without Hubby last year, and to show myself that I'm actually competent to have a positive weekend sans spouse. Our first night goes well, and I have several ideas planned for Saturday because it was supposed to rain. I knew sitting cooped up in a house all day would only aide in frustration and hostility on all fronts, so I decided to go on a quick errand then take the girls to a paint-your-own pottery store.

We arrive at our first errand, which was to stop at Clothes Mentor and see if I could sell a few items of clothing. The girls played in the kids area while I worked with the girl at the counter. After our transaction, I gathered the girls, and we ran to the car through the rain. They had no idea where I was taking them, but they were excited. When we finally got into town and parked, I walked them to the shop and they squealed with delight. 

YAY! 

MOMMY IS GOING TO LET US GET MESSY!

It took every ounce of my patience to let the mess happen, but they were enjoying themselves so much it was easy to forget the paint smudges. After a few coats of sloppy paint, they deemed their work complete, and I went to pay.

Except.

I couldn't find my wallet. 

I look all around the my table and scanned the store. Nothing. I told the guy I must have left my wallet in the car, and I'd swing back around. He said that was fine, as the pottery needed to be kilned and wouldn't be ready for a week anyway. Out we trooped into the rain. I got the girls into the car and started going through my bags. No wallet. I checked the floor, between the seats, everywhere.

No wallet.

A sinking feeling entered my stomach. Had I taken it with me from the clothing store? Did I bring it into the pottery shop? I couldn't remember.  And despite being dangerously close to nap time, I decided to retrace my steps. I journeyed back to the clothing store, where nothing had turned up. I kept an eye out in the parking lot for any sign that I'd dropped it. I saw nothing. I sped back to the pottery shop, where they had not seen it either.

My wallet.

Was gone.

I stared to panic. Which meant a moaned and cried. I couldn't reach Hubby because he was in the mountains without service. I had no way of making purchases for the rest of the weekend, save for a few dollars I had stashed in the pocket of my bag.

After conferring with my in-laws and mom, I checked my online accounts. In the few hours since losing my wallet, no weird activity had been tried on my accounts. This was a good thing. Since there was a chance it could turn up in one of the two stores, I decided to hold off making any decisions about the cards. Especially because I could not reach Hubby, and canceling the cards would strand him with no money.

I spent the rest of the day anxious and short-tempered. I was frustrated with myself for losing the wallet, even though I know it was not a matter of carelessly misplacing it. I believe it fell out of my bag in one of the parking lots. My hope was that a good Samaritan would turn it in.

My greatest regret was that My Perfect Girls Weekend was marred. Something had, once again, thrown a wrench into my plans while Hubby was away. I had lost my patience with the girls, allowing my fear and frustration to impact the way I interacted with them.  I was disappointed with myself on so many levels.

After a reprieve at my sister's house (where we had our first viewing of Frozen. Yes we live under a rock), I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things with the remaining cash I had. I had regained some sanity and patience, and trusted this would be a quick trip that would get us home (and closer to bed time).

Of course, I was wrong.

Not 3 seconds after walking in the door did I hear a thud. I look behind me and Bug was sprawled out on the floor. Something to note about both of my daughters: neither was blessed with gracefulness. They stumble and fall more than a newborn calf. They are all knobby knees and elbows. So to see that she tripped was no cause for concern. 

But the moment she began wailing, I knew she'd hurt herself. Bug picked up her head and I saw the blood gushing from her mouth. No, I thought to myself. Please don't let her have knocked out a tooth! I have no idea how to handle that!

I scooped her up and made my way to the public restroom, amidst the ogling of onlookers. When I looked down I saw there was more blood. Bug noticed this at the same time and became hysterical. She's recently become very sensitive to even small scratches, so blood of this proportion completely freaked her out. 

I was struggling to stay calm, which was mounted on top of already being anxious from the day's earlier events. Of course, the room was occupied, so I tried to discreetly clean her up and calm her down, so as not to draw more attention. The last thing I wanted to do was to alert the public to a bleeding wound.  

Chica, though, had a different idea.

The best way Chica saw to help was to ask no less than 5,267 questions. 

VERY LOUDLY.

"Is she bleeding?"

"There's blood ALL OVER THE PLACE!"

"Can we still go to the other store you promised you'd take us to?"

"Is her tooth still there?"

"DOES SHE STILL HAVE TEETH?!?"

"Man. That's a lot of blood."


All I could think in that moment, the climax of a stressful day all by myself, was that I shouldn't have left the house today and there was not enough Nutella in the world to redeem all the folly.

Ok, that's a lie.

Nutella makes everything better.

All of Bug's teeth were okay, and the bleeding seemed to all come from a cut to the inside of her upper lip. We made it home, made it to bedtime and even had a decent night's sleep. 

I'm still dealing with the lost wallet, which has sadly not turned up since the weekend. No shady activities have transpired, which I am grateful for, but the inaccessibility has certainly been inconvenient.

I've also subsequently forbid Hubby to ever go away. 

Like.

Ever again.

So if you ever find yourself having a bad day, a bad weekend or feeling completely and utterly alone, call upon this post. In this world of parenting, we are never actually alone. We all have our bad days, our weak moments, our rough seasons. And these times don't make you a bad parent. They just make you human. And it's okay to be human. 

Because. 

You know.

YOU ARE HUMAN.

On the dark days, shoot me an email or drop me a line on the CSHM Facebook page.  I will commiserate with you and tell you my Bad Day Stories and we'll laugh. And maybe, just maybe, we'll both find relief that, thank goodness, I'm not the only one.

And then I'll most likely send you a jar of Nutella.