Finding humor in the inevitable parenting blooper

Parenting bloopers are the worst. It's so embarrassing to yell at your kids for doing something and then find out you are actually the one being the idiot. For example, one of my all time biggest parenting bloopers happened a few years back when I was walking down the street with my crazy kids. They were being insane, as per the usual, jumping in the snow and running all over the place. In other words not at all walking next to me quietly like I wanted them to be doing. So, exasperated, I exclaimed, "Stop acting like children!!"

They looked up at me, sweet, innocent, confusion on their lovely little faces. I'm not sure what I had meant to say, 'stop acting like babies' maybe? And the worst part was, we totally were not alone. I did not want to know what the family walking behind us had thought of my outburst. I shuffled my children to the car as quickly as I could without looking back. But honestly who doesn't want their kids to stop acting like children every once in a while? (. . . or maybe like always?)  But still . . . it was pretty embarrassing and I had to just laugh at myself.

So then, the other day it happened again and I was once more stuck with my foot in my mouth. It all started with the dreaded case of the missing something or other. I despise looking for things, it's such a colossal waste of time! And it seems like my kids are constantly loosing things at our house--things they cannot possibly live without, such as blankies and library books and beloved creations of art. And the worst part is my childrens complete ineptitude at finding things. The thing can be right in front of their faces and they will absolutely not see it. They have serious 'finding-things' handicaps. I think it's a universal epidemic of childhood.

So on this particular day of looking for the thing we cannot live without, I found Noah in his room with his face down on his pillow. I went totally berserk. "Noah!" I yelled. "What are you doing? You need to help me! It's not going to just magically appear, you have to actually get up and look!"

My poor little Noah looked up at me with that same look of sweet innocence on his face, "But Mom, I'm praying."

Oops. "So sorry. Carry on. Perfectly acceptable way of finding things." *Sheepish laugh*

And that's just the way it is with parenting sometimes. Sometimes we have parenting bloopers and there's really nothing we can do about it except laugh and say sorry. And I think our kids appreciate that.