Mommy Did A Bad Thing

I ran over my stroller today. Don't worry - it was empty. I parked it behind the mini-van (aka The Big White Tampon), put the kids safely inside, put myself inside, waved goodbye to my friend, and then backed right over the stroller. Is this horrifying? Hmmm... Sort of. No small people were in any actual danger. It was just a very obvious (not to mention expensive) manifestation of what a bubble-head I have become.

Here's the really embarrassing part -- aside from the fact that my mistakes are potentially life-threatening: this is the second stroller I have killed in exactly the same fashion in less than six months. No. I'm not kidding. Here is another really embarrassing part: I don't have to throw the stroller out because I can rebuild it from the spare parts of the other strollers I have destroyed over time. I have a stroller grave-yard on the side of the my garage where I keep the garbage cans and recycling bins. My garage has started to look like Wall*E's trailer. There may not be a wheel-less car and old refrigerator there, but you get the idea. Am I white trash? Maybe ivory. Or possibly cream.

But there's something else. There's clearly something wrong with me. I swear, there are two types of people in the world; those that are somewhat normal and well-adjusted and those that are like me - the devastatingly stupid Morons. (We deserve capitalization.) I spend at least half an hour every night before sleep claims me (or doesn't) making a mental inventory of every cringe-worthy thing I did and said throughout the day. It is often an absurdly long list.

The items range from minor to heinous. Here's a sample:

• Let the children listen to inappropriate music in the car. Now my four year old keeps saying "Give that big booty a smack". It was hilarious. For about five seconds.
• Made a joke about excessive drinking to my Pastor and instead of laughing and thinking I was funny, she looked disturbed and constipated.
• While paying more attention to Facebook than my maternal duties, I think the baby ate dog food.
• Saw a picture in a magazine of the teenage werewolf from Twilight and choked on my own saliva when I learned that he was 19 years younger than me. Am disgusting, awful, calcified old woman. Need to stop reading UsWeekly and start reading Wall Street Journal.
• Bought iTunes card as gift for my sister and then spent it myself downloading songs I used to have on cassette. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.
• While doing laundry, I found a masticated turd in the washing machine and said: "What is this? Is this... Is it?? Oh for PETE's sake! Are you F*CKING kidding me?!" which was overheard and repeated by my son in rotation with giving his big booty a smack.
• Referred to myself as a "turtle herder" on the phone and referenced that it often takes my kids 35 minutes to put their shoes on. My daughter started crying because I was mean. Because I called her a turtle.
• In an effort to make sure the children eat their five servings of fruit and/or veggies per day, I let them eat all the grapes they wanted and now they have diarrhea in the manner of a repeating lawn sprinkler.
• The last thing my kids heard before falling asleep tonight was me threatening to spank them if I heard one more peep from either of them. Just because it took them a total of two hours and forty minutes from the time they were put in the bed until they finally fell asleep... I should not threaten to beat them. That was wrong.
• I accidentally finished a whole bottle of wine. It was only two glasses and then a tiny, little third glass and it was gone. I think someone shrunk the bottle.

As I lie in bed every night, running through the day's events in my head, I wonder - is it just me? I try hard every day only to fall short. Am I special? Should I find a support group? Is my poor husband actually doing community service by staying married to me? Why has God chosen to place such wonderful children in my care, when I am so clearly an imbecile? And then I realize that I may in fact be the luckiest person in the world because in spite of who I am (an imbecile) and what I do (be imbecilic), my family and friends love me anyway. It is a miracle. The sort that is celebrated in the streets of France on odd weeks in February. And with that happy thought -- and three glasses of wine -- I fall asleep.

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