THAT Mom on the Plane...

My most embarrassing THAT Mom experience was on a flight from Missouri to Phoenix last summer. My daughter was only 8 months and my son was 3 and a half.  Shortly after we left Missouri, our flight was placed into a 2-hour holding pattern due to bad weather and turbulence.  Things were surprisingly calm and relaxed in my row.  My daughter was happy, we had the Wiggles on DVD to keep my son content, and my husband and I were thinking we had the best kids ever!  But then it happened...

My son was potty trained at the time (so no pull-up on) and he desperately needed to go to the bathroom.  The seat belt sign had been on for over an hour while we flew through turbulence, and the crew kept reminding people to stay in their seats.  I could tell my son was trying very hard to hold on but I could also tell that he was not going to last much longer.  At this point, I am thinking, "Maybe potty training him was a mistake."  Diapers are a great thing, and he wouldn't have had to handle too much ridicule had we waited until he was a teenager to potty train him...right?

So, screw the seatbelt sign...I got up and hurried to the back of the plane.  Right when I reached the back, 2 people went into both lavatories.  Damn, damn, damn!    There was an empty seat by the last bathroom so I stood my son up on it, begging him to hold it.  As the lavatory door opened, I hurried in, only to find out it was too late and he had wet his pants.  He was so upset. I was frustrated at the situation and I am sure everyone on the plane heard it.  I tried my hardest to get him cleaned up through his constant crying about his wet clothes.  As I left the lavatory, I looked down at the seat he had been standing in and saw a HUGE puddle of pee in the seat- CRAP!  The young man's face in the seat next to the "pee seat" was disgusted and, well, pissed (no pun intended).  I was speechless for a minute - slack-jawed and just staring at the young man. 

After the shock of what happened set in, I managed to apologize, and apologize, and apologize.  I then asked the flight attendant to help me clean it up (what an angel) before I finally headed back to our seat (crying son in tow).  I sat down, fished out my son's change of clothes, and put the wet, pee-drenched garments in a Ziploc bag.  I calmed him down, got him into the dry clothing, and proceeded to tell my husband about what had just happened.  Damn...that just sucked!  I can now look back on it and laugh, but at the time, I was THAT Mom... on the plane!

THAT Mom at Daycare...

The first instance I can remember saying this out loud, was when my daughter was Patient Zero (or Child Zero) at daycare for Hand, Foot and Mouth (HFM) disease (not to be confused with Hoof and Mouth disease).  We had been camping with 4 families when my daughter was 18 months old.  My daughter had an ear infection on the trip (not known at the time) so I was administering Tylenol throughout the weekend for her fever and fussiness.  One of the families borrowed our Tylenol for their little boy who came down with a fever.  A few days after we returned from the trip, our daughter developed an extremely high fever that only lasted for a day.  We kept her home from daycare for a couple of days.  A few days after she returned to school, we received a call from our friends whose little boy had been sick, letting us know that their son was diagnosed with HFM and it was highly contagious.  Crud.

Within an hour of their call, we received a call from daycare letting us know that my daughter (MK) had spots inside her mouth.  Damn, damn, damn!  Sure enough, she had HFM, and worse yet, she exposed her classmates.  Each day I went to school to pick up my son, I would see a sign on a new daycare room stating "Confirmed case of HFM in this room.  Please look out for the following symptoms...” All of a sudden I felt guilty even being at the daycare since we had been the family that introduced the virus into the school. 

So, I was THAT mom!  The mom who takes her sick kid to school and exposes the other children.  The mom who is responsible for causing an outbreak at the school. The mom who ended up making a lot of parents take off of work to stay home with their sick child.  The mom who all the other parents were cursing under their breath.  Yep...that was me.  Good times, Good times.