It was a full month before I confessed to anyone else….
I told my sister in law that I forgot to buckle my son into his high chair and he flopped right out, the worst damage done was to my mom pride. She laughed at me.
Soon, these mortified moments of parenting became the hushed and giggled conversations I’d have with my sister or girlfriend over a glass of wine. And as more new moms entered into my social circle and the ‘confessions’ came out, I began to notice a trend.
You will screw up, you will feel horrible, but your kids will be alright…..

15 mom fails that almost every mom can expect
1. You will forget to buckle them in – to a car seat, a high chair, a toddler swing. You’ll trash talk yourself at first ‘How hard can it be to remember –Safety First!?’ Then you’ll begin to recount those times you put your full freshly poured cup of coffee in the fridge and brought out the ketchup bottle. Or the time you brought the TV remote to the grocery store instead of your phone. Having kids short-circuits the feedback loop between your brain and….well everything.
3. You won’t get dressed for an entire day. Your entire family will sport the same lounging clothes for at least a 48 hour period. But if you call it a PJ party and put it on Instagram it’s totally legit
5. Your car will be dirty, in a whole different way than pre-babies. More in a way that says ‘McD’s play place on wheels’. One Saturday you will be searching for ‘the smell’ (every parent’s car has one) and you’ll end up filling a garbage bag and two rubbermaid bins of random shoes, broken toys and food wrappers
7. You will lose a dirty diaper….somewhere. Don’t worry, you won’t realize it right away. Eventually, you will smell it and have to dismantle entire rooms or your vehicle to find it wedged under a carseat. Either way, take this time to pat yourself on the back for cleaning and decluttering said room or vehicle
8. You will feed them crap, more often than you ever intend to. A drive-thru run for French fries or a bag of Goldfish looks really like a sweet pina-colada-filled oasis after trying to make gluten-free, paleo, homemade lunches and fizzling out of the false romance and work that entails. Make this stuff cause YOU want it, and relent that your kids will eat your quinoa waffles no more than twice before they decide they didn’t like them anyway and ‘can I just have cereal please!?’.
9. You will fail at sleep training attempts. Because sleep training is as straightforward as learning how to use Android after life with an iPhone. But you will try! You will read a book, learn a mantra and get geared up for the ‘three nights’ of training. Then when the time comes you will be whispering questions to your husband in the middle of the night desperate for an answer on what to do. While your baby cries echo through the house and your boobs begin to throb with a firey hot sleep-deprived ache. You will cave. Don’t worry, you can try again tomorrow…or next week
10. You will pretend not to smell a poopy diaper….and then whisper in your kid’s ears that they need to go give their dad a big hug. If he calls you on it, play dumb and challenge him to rock, paper, scissors – in the name of fairness
11. You will sneak-eat. A word which encompasses all the tactics moms use to hide their consumption of the ‘good food’ from their children’s hungry eyes
12. You will take credit for a random and brilliant thing your kid can suddenly do or say. Like the first time we realized our son knew all the alphabet letters. We both asked each other who taught it to him….thank you Super Why, we will take the credit from here
13. You will miss baths, toothbrushing, and diaper changes a little more often then you let on. The peaceful nightly routine you had with a newborn will slowly adapt into a metaphorical board game of parenting as more kids, more poop and more dirt come into your life. Landed on ‘crapped my pants’? Go back to ‘bathe the kids before noon’. Rolled a ‘pending dentist visit’? Pick up the ‘double up on dental hygiene for a week’ card.
14. You will lie to your kids, for their own good, of course. And by own good I mean so you can avoid another excruciating episode of Calliou or their relentless pleas for another park day. Besides, it helps their imagination if they believe that tiny invisible elves are repairing the spray park – or the book fairy took away that My Little Pony book for a kid who needed one – or we can’t watch any more Diego cause he has to go home and eat all the dinner that his mommy made just for him
15. The day you play a mental highlight reel asking yourself if your baby could roll off this bed or couch and conclude that they ‘aren’t there yet’ will be the day they roll of the bed or couch
But remember, your kids still think you are awesome. So brush it off, ask yourself how you want to move forward and show up for that mama!
Shawna, excellent blog! When Jenn was 4 months old and in a cuddle seat, she managed to roll off the couch. When James was 13 months old, he climbed out of his high chair, and ended up with a 3 inch fracture on the back of his skull!. I’ve been there, done that, and my kids are now in their 40’s, lol. I’ve managed to not kill them yet!
Ha! Guilty on all accounts. Now do I get a vacation, errrr, sentenced to jail time?