I'm The Mom Next Door

Today I took All My Children to an area attraction. All three of them. All by myself. For the very first time. To Grant's Farm. Wow, I'm nuts.

Grant's Farm involves boarding a tram, riding along trails dotted with buffalo, cows, and horses (more like dotted with their poop), and then de-boarding the tram to stroll through a mini zoo type area filled with elephants, goats, and monkeys. Oh my.

Oh, the tram. Had one screaming baby in one arm and a baby yelling GONE GONE GONE in the other arm. But we made it. No one fell out only to be eaten by ravenous Oreo Cookie Cows.


Grant's Farm is currently decorated for Halloween. My three year old ran from skeleton to goblin to ghost yelling, "Scaries! Another scary! Look! More scaries! I love being scared!! It's fun being scared!!" Which makes sense, because when she was a baby, she loved nothing more than me catching her off guard by yelling BOO in her face. She'd jump, then laugh herself silly. Try that with the babies and they'd instantly poop their pants before wailing for hours on end.

After successfully navigating the friendly local attraction, and de-boarding the going home tram, I packed both babies into the stroller and boldly headed to the exit. So proud was I. We made it. I made it! All by ourselves/myself!

That's when a woman raced over to me while yelling, "Your baby! She's going to fall out of the stroller!!"

I stopped in my tracks and saw that yes, Juna was indeed hanging by her NECK out of the front of the stroller. She slipped, feet first, and was about to bang into the pavement, only to be run over by her sisters and oblivious mother.

I quickly rescued my dangling baby and realized I hadn't buckled her into the seat of the stroller.

Of course this all happened in front of a mom's group. Other mothers. How we mothers fear being judged my other mothers. Oh, and causing bodily harm to our children. Yeah yeah. But those mothers! How we hate it when things go wrong in front of other mothers.

Hi! I'm a mom who has videos up on her website, providing helpful hints and tips for other moms! Ignore the fact that my baby is bouncing along the blacktop because I forgot to buckle her into her safety restraints. Give that woman a TV show!

To my surprise, the other moms rushed to ease my discomfort and obvious embarrassment. "OH, that's happened to me before, don't worry!" And, "Happened the other day! My baby fell out of his swing because I forgot to buckle him in!" "Happens to all of us, don't worry!"

Even with nearly sending us to Children's today, I'd say our my first outing alone with All My Children was a successful one. A draining one. But a successful one.

On the way home, the three year old asked, "Are you done being married to daddy? I want to marry him. He's a good man."

I explained that she can't marry daddy, because she's his daughter and daughters cannot marry daddies. Her reply? "No, I'm going to marry Daddy. He's the perfect man."

And he is. I am able to take this much needed break because Matt is in the other room, on the floor, letting all three girls use him as a jungle gym. He always dreamed of having women crawling all over him. There you go, honey.

See the Oreo Cookie Cow and other sights from the place we visited today, when the next episode of Word To Your Mutha- The Show- airs on Monday.