Monday confessional - worst mom award

For anyone who thinks they have had the "worst" bad-mom moment...

Once upon a time (or, almost three years ago), I was grocery shopping at Walmart with my three children - Kendall and Cooper walking beside me, and 5 month old Blake fastened in his infant car seat in the front of the cart. After an hour of staring at the ceiling from his viewpoint in the carrier, Blake began to fuss and cry and would not be consoled by either the moving of the shopping cart or his toys or bottle, he was just DONE. I was not though, I still had to hit the produce section at the front of the store and only needed about 10 more minutes... so I unlocked his baby carrier from the shopping cart's child seat and rotated it until it was sitting more upright and Blake could see forward. His carrier still rested just fine on the front of the cart - it just wasn't locked on anymore.

This quieted him down right away and I proceeded to pick my produce, walking in front of the shelves and pulling my very full cart behind me while Kendall pushed it from behind so Blake had someone to look at. When I was finished along the first row I tugged the cart to turn it around the corner but it would not budge, the carpet mats on the floor in front of the produce had raised rubber edges on them and my heavy cart wouldn't roll over the bump. I tugged again, still no budging, so I told Kendall to give the cart a good push and I tugged hard at the same time. 

Instead of rolling forward however, the cart tipped up onto it's two left wheels and Blake's baby seat was launched into the air, landing upside down on the linoleum floor. Thankfully the handle was locked up in it's carry position and Blake was still buckled in firmly, which stopped his head from hitting the ground and him falling out, but that did nothing to prevent the instant horror I felt, or Blake from screaming bloody murder, or twenty people from instantly rushing over because I was in full view of the entire front of the store. 

(Nothing like enduring your worst mom moment EVER in front of a crowd of strangers...)

The store manager was called and I was sure I was going to get in trouble for not having my baby seat properly attached. Kendall was crying and saying that Grandma was NOT going to be very happy about this, in a very accusing manner for a 6 year old, and I was holding Blake, checking him all over for injury and trying to console him. It was ten kinds of awful. 

Eventually Blake calmed down and it didn't seem as though he'd been hurt - just scared out of his wits, I made it out of the store without being reported or arrested, and I called my husband and confessed the whole horrid story. We watched Blake carefully over the next couple of days to make sure he was fine and then I was teased mercilessly that if Blake was ever asked as an adult if he was dropped on his head as a child, he would be able to answer that yes, yes he was.

Which is only funny until you discover a squishy raised bump on the side of your baby's head 3 days later, and take him to the doctor and spend two hours trying to get him to fall asleep so they can do a CT scan, all to discover that the squishy bump is fluid from a FRACTURE IN HIS SKULL. 

Yes that's right, I'm responsible for cracking my son's head. Top that bad-mom moment.

5 months old and what a chubster!

Now in case you're concerned, it was a very small fracture that healed all by itself without any treatment or procedure necessary, and Blake's head is perfectly normal to this day. We think the side of his head hit the handle of his infant car seat, which makes me so glad I gave him some baby Tylenol after we were out of the store and back in the car because poor thing must have had quite the headache. 

Sheesh, just thinking about it STILL makes me feel guilty! Lesson learned though, I never propped Blake's seat that way in a shopping cart again.

And that's the story of how I broke my baby's head and won worst-mom award. Feel free to try and top it. 

The end.