My Baby Licked the Toilet and Other Parenting Fails

I have been on a roll lately. In the last several weeks, I have had so many parenting fails that it’s hard to keep track. Fortunately, they’re pretty much universally hilarious–mostly because they make me look incredibly stupid without causing any real damage to anyone, so I guess that’s the upside. Here’s a partial list.

My Baby Licked the Toilet

This was not just a snappy post title to get your attention. Emmett literally licked the toilet. This was, of course, moments after I set him on the bathroom floor and then proceeded to knock him over while trying to stop Miles from crawling out of the room naked. I grabbed Miles’ foot, propped Emmett up safely against the toilet, and scooped Miles into my arms and safely away from the open bathroom door. Mommy win, right? Yeah, but then I turned around and saw Emmett with his tongue under the toilet seat, looking up at me with big baby eyes. Awesome.

I Nearly Knocked Myself Out While Holding a Baby

The boys have a sloped ceiling in their room, which used to be our attic storage area. When I do bedtime solo, which happens a lot since I work from home and am pretty much always. here. I sit on the floor against the wall to nurse Emmett in my arms and bottle feed Miles on the floor. Miles inevitably rolls over and crawls away, so I put Emmett in the crib first and then track Miles down. That night, I stood up with Emmett in my arms BAM directly into the ceiling. I hit so hard I nearly fell down, and I heard my hair clip crunch as it smashed between my skull and the drywall. There is a dent in the ceiling, and my hair clip is history. Fortunately I didn’t drop Emmett, but my vision got hazy and I definitely staggered. Note to self: Look up.

My Baby Got Stuck Under a Couch

Babies like to explore, and I try not to interfere because I don’t want to make little scaredy wuss babies who are afraid to sneeze because of overattentive (read: control freak) parenting. Basically if I don’t see a strong likelihood of injury or death, I left the boys get into stuff. Miles, in particular, likes to check things out. He’s also been stuck under cribs (see picture), bouncers, hampers, walk-behind toys, baskets of laundry, and dogs, not to mention other things. While visiting my mom’s aunt, I took my eyes of Miles for a split second and turned around to find him trapped under the wicker couch in the breezeway. We had to lift it up to get him out.

I Gave My Babies Diarrhea

So know how prunes make you poop? And know how prunes are just dried plums? And know how I bought a bunch of plums to make baby food the other week? And know how I fed said plums to my babies? Yeah. See also, every STFU, Parents post about poop in the bathtub. (No, this one does not get a photo. You’re welcome.) I think Princess Mommy is still laughing about my phone call immediately after it happened, during which I panickedly demanded suggestions on how to sterilize bath toys without melting them.

My Baby Wiped Out in the Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial has gorgeous marble floors. Miles knows this firsthand because he faceplanted into them during our trip to DC in September with Princess Mommy and her family. He was getting cranky from being in the stroller or on Daddy-in-Training’s chest all day, so I figured that would be a good spot for him to crawl around and burn off some energy. I was right, except for the fact that he made a beeline straight the steps leading up to the statue, which are surrounded by a low chain to keep people from getting too close. As I slid him backwards across the floor, he wrenched out of my hands and boom smashed his face into the marble. Have you ever heard a baby scream bloody murder in the Lincoln Memorial? I don’t really recommend it. People stare. He swelled up so fast that it looked like he had a half a pingpong ball under his eyebrow. One of the rangers (is that what they call the people who work there?) got me an ice pack. That was an awkward conversation. You can see the goose egg clearly on his left eyebrow in this picture with Daddy-in-Training—post ice.

My Baby Ate Sand

We took the boys to Nags Head for a mini-vacay a month ago with one of my friends from work. They’d been to the beach before when we went to Puerto Rico in April (they were almost 4 months old then) and seemed to love it, so we were keen to take them back at 9 months, when they were old enough to know more of what was going on. And they were keen to crawl around, which seemed fine, until Emmett grabbed a fistful of sand and crammed it into his mouth. Good times.

My Baby Thinks His Father and I Tried to Drown Him

Still at Nags Head, we decided to take the boys down to the water (to rinse off all that sand they were eating). Miles loved the ocean before, so Daddy-in-Training gave him to me because he got to do the ocean with him in Puerto Rico. I held Miles’ hands and walked him down to the wet sand, and he loved feeling the grains between his toes. Just as we reached the water’s edge, a gentle wave came our way. I positioned him in front of me so the water would hit his feet and waited for the squeals of delight. Instead he nearly flipped himself upside down and literally tried to climb up my arm, screeching in terror, to get away from the water. I picked him up, soothed him, and decided to try again with him in my arms while the water lapped around my ankles. As the wave came toward us, his face went from kind-of-panicked to oh-my-God-I-am-going-to-die and he started completely freaking out. Freaking. Out. Passersby were staring. From his position waist-deep in the water with Emmett, Daddy-in-Training turned around and looked at me in concern because Miles was screaming so loudly. The poor kid was practically hyperventilating with fear. My fearless boy. Except for the ocean in North Carolina, apparently. Daddy’s attempt yielded similar results, pictured.

My Babies Peed All Over the Floor

We like to let the boys have a little nakey time after bath so they can fully dry before bed, so I don’t cram them into diapers right away. Usually they crawl around and play with their toys for five or ten minutes before we pack it in. In two separate incidents, things did not go according to plan. Miles peed all over the bookshelf, and Emmett peed all over the floor in front of the doorway–and then stomped in the puddle as I tried to extricate him. There was an impromptu second bath as a follow-up to the impromptu post-bath shower, and their bedroom floor got some extra-special hands-and-knees scrubbing. Ahhh, parenting.

These, embarrassingly enough, are just a few of my parenting fails. How have you screwed up recently?