Perfect Parenting

So, I'm dedicating this post to all of the mothers (and fathers) out there who have ever done something that caused some kind of injury, pain, etc to your kids (unintentional of course) and then had the undeniable thought, "I'm a terrible mother!". This is how our weekend went. Sarah woke up from a nap on Saturday covered (and I mean head to toe) in a terrible looking red, pimply rash. After making sure she didn't have a fever and that her lips weren't swollen (as I first thought, my God, perhaps she had been stung by something in her sleep and had gone into anaphylaxis- anyways, I was a bit irrational from my 5 weeks of sleep deprivation). After thinking a bit clearly, I started to wonder (as all mothers do) what I had done wrong. It occurred to me, while I'd earlier in the day thought how good I was doing keeping up with everybody's laundry, I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd used the "baby" laundry soap. Of course, then it made sense- she broke out because I'd washed her clothes in the regular detergent (not on purpose of course, but when you miss half your sleep every night for 5 weeks, some brain cells are bound to be lost). Now not only did I have this terrible feeling in my stomach because of my failure as a mother, I was now overwhelmed with the daunting task of rewashing ALL of her clothes, blankets, towels, burp rags, etc. Since I couldn't pinpoint which items were washed incorrectly, it was my only choice. While I started ripping out everything from her dressers, Chris calmly gave her a baking soda bath and tried to reassure me that this was not my fault (or at least that it wasn't that big of a deal). Meanwhile, Alex discovered he had something stuck in his teeth- yes, it was an emergency to him and what was I going to do about it? Anyways, Alex and Anna have these easy flossers they got from the dentist and they are perfect for kids- not like the typical floss. I told him to go ahead and floss his teeth and if he couldn't get it I would help when I was done. Well.....apparently I wasn't specific enough and he used regular floss (which he's not very good at) and somehow ended up swallowing the floss. So, while the baby was crying (she was a bit unhappy about being put in the tub apparently), I was buried in piles of laundry and Alex was walking around the house like a cat with a hairball stuck in it's throat attempting to regurgitate the piece of floss that had found it's way down his throat, I thought.....this is what they mean when they say parenting is the hardest job you'll ever love. And while I certainly am not the perfect mother, I guess at least we made it through the day with no visits to the ER and 3 children who eventually calmed down. Plus- we had to admit, it was pretty funny to look back on a few hours later.

Here's a recent picture of Sarah, she's growing like crazy so we must be doing something right. I don't know how much she weighs as she hasn't been to the doctor for about a month now, but I would guess she's maybe 9 pounds?