Article by: Megan Stremick

It’s Super Bowl and we’re having a big gathering at our house with friends. It ended up that none of our friends that have kids could make it, so unfortunately for our two year old son, Charlie, he did not have any little ones to play with him. It was like any other get-together when there’s some big sporting event on, the girls are chatting around the kitchen and the boys are all in the family room huddled around the TV.

I watched Charlie grab my pink Nalgene water bottle out of the cupboard and take it in the back yard. He was working hard on the process of taking the cap off and putting the cap back on, taking it off and putting it back on. I could see him clearly out the kitchen window. As my non-mom friends were asking me about how my pregnancy was going so far I could hear the hooting and hollering of the guys in the other room yelling at the TV and at each other about a bad call the ref made on a play.

A few minutes passed and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the pink water bottle sitting on the floor in the hallway just off the kitchen. I didn’t even see him come inside then  I thought about the fact that I didn’t  hear the front door close when the last person walked inside.

“Um, honey, is Charlie in there with you?”

“What?”

That was my first indication that he was not paying attention to anything else besides the football game.

I ran into the other room now yelling, “where’s Charlie?!”

Just as he stood up and we both ran to the open front door a young mom pushing her child in a stroller was walking up to our door.

“Um, is this someone’s son out her in the driveway?” the woman asks with a look of concern.

We ran past her and saw our two year old standing there putting his little hands all over the filthy bumper of my husbands’ Jeep. I swooped in like a hawk retrieving her prey. I picked him up and hugged him so tight it would have taken the jaws-of-life to pry him off of me.

“Oh my god,” I gasped. “How did he get by both of us?”

My husband was thanking the woman as she was walking away down the street, probably debating if she should call social services right then and there.

We went back into the house, shut the door and locked it, and explained to everyone what happened, not that it wasn’t easy enough to figure out. I finally released my son to safe ground a few minutes later and listened to my girlfriends saying they were so sorry, they didn’t even see him.

“Don’t be sorry, I’M THE MOM! Not to mention there are no other children here. He’s the only one I need to watch!”

After the initial shock and what-if scenarios died down it was now free reign for the guys to start making jokes.  Going through responses they wish they had come up with when the young mom asked who’s son was unattended out in the driveway.

“Finally! We sent him out on a beer run like an hour ago,” or “yah, he wanted to take the dog for a walk,” or “thanks, does it look like he’s done washing the car yet?”

All totally inappropriate jokes but I admit I laughed in spite of my devastation at our momentous parenting fumble (pun intended).

We kissed and hugged him more than usual before he went to bed that night and we both gave a sigh of relief before turning out the light to go to bed.

This morning I went online and looked up front door screens that automatically close.

Please make me feel better with a parental fumble of your own.

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Other Posts by Megan Stremick:

• A New Addition to the 8th Continent Soymilk Family!
• How I Shed the Baby Weight. (And How you Can Too!)