Mom Flip-out Moment

I always knew I had it in me.  I'm not so naive to think that I would never be that mom.  After having kids, you see the worst form of yourself and typically know what you are capable of.  As it is my goal to make you feel less alone in your parenting journey, I feel compelled to share the following event with you.  You're welcome.

Remember in "A Christmas Story" (a classic movie I never fully appreciated until I was grown) when Ralphie blamed his use of the f-bomb on his friend Flick?  Ralphie's mom proceeded to call Flick's mom and tell her of his misdeed.  All you can hear on the other end of the phone was Flick's mom screaming, "WHAT?  WHAAT?  WHAAAT?"  Her head was clearly spinning around as she proceeded to do who-knows-what to Flick.  This was me.  Two days after Christmas.  Two days after the most glorious day of peace and joy of the year.

It would be my son that would be the star of this story.  Christian is the only boy out of 3 girls.  He thinks of things the girls would have never thought of.  Therefore, it would be my son that would make my head spin around in all of my fine parenting glory.  It would be my son that would announce to me, first thing in the morning as I sat down to breakfast, "I cut Marleigh's hair this morning!"  

I glanced down at my 2-year-old, who had yet to have her first haircut (let that sink in) and observed that besides her bed head, she had in fact had a hair cut by her almost 5-year-old brother.  

Let the  "WHAT?  WHAAT?  WHAAAT?" head-spinning commence.  I flew upstairs to his room as I knew this had occurred prior to the rest of the family getting out of bed.  In his trash can, I found a nice little auburn, curly-haired pile of trimmings.

I was hysterical.  There were tears from Christian and Marleigh.  There was sobbing and rocking by me, in complete shock and trauma,  My older girls' eyes were about to pop out of their heads, as I am pretty sure the level of emotions coming from their dear mama was a never seen before experience.  

DISCLAIMER: Christian has the superhuman ability to scale walls, cabinets, and counters.  He's like a mini Spiderman with his upper body strength.  While I try to keep items like scissors out of his reach, I know that he can find anything and everything despite the attempt to hide them.  

Upon realizing that I was making the ordeal exponentially worse, I knew I needed to separate myself from my son until I could talk to him calmly without wanting to do who-knows-what to him (don't judge, if you haven't been there as a parent, you WILL just WAIT).  As my husband lovingly dealt with my son, I left...FOR TWO HOURS.

What did I do?  The one thing everyone does early on a Sunday morning to calm themselves down from a hysterical frenzy; I sat in a parking lot, crying and waiting for the car wash to open so I could clean and vacuum my mini-van.  (There was driving and a trip to the grocery store in there too.  My van wasn't SO dirty that it took two hours to clean.  It only took 1 1/2 hours.)    

My car is never so clean as when I clean in an angry rage.  In the end, I had a sparkling car (that would only last for the rest of the day), my hysterics were mostly gone, and I sort of liked the boy again.  

I returned home, went straight to Christian, hugged him and asked, "Why did you cut Marleigh's hair?


"It was in her face" MR. LOGICAL


"What does Mommy do when her hair is in her face?"


"You put a bow in it." OF COURSE.


So, what can we all learn from this massive parenting fail?


Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  You will have a flip-out moment, I promise, either now when your babies are young, I shudder to think what the teenage years will bring.  You hug, you apologize, and try to appreciate the new mullet that your son has given your baby girl as her first haircut.  

Good thing she is so stinkin' cute.