Our Top Ten List

So many of my new mommy friends (triplets or otherwise) come to me crying because they have made their first parenting"mistake".

I try to assure them best I can that they have not scarred their child(ren) for life, and that this is just the first of many mistakes they will make along the way. This probably isn't the warm and fuzzy feel-good advice they wanted -- especially the part about how many more mistakes they will make, but it is the truth.

This is an especially scary fact for mommies of triplets since these three wonders are usually our first and last children. There is no learning curve like parents who have children several years apart -- there are no "do overs". So, if you screw it up the first time, there is no comforting thought of, "Lesson learned! I won't do THAT next time!", because there is no next time.

That's a hard pill to swallow. If you screw up, you've screwed up ... no mulligans allowed. Yep, just some extra added pressure to make motherhood even more of a roller coaster! It's enough to paralyze you with fear.

So, I've read that one of the best ways to confront your fears is to let them out. So without further ado, here is my list of Top Ten Really Bad Things I've Done As A Parent. A quick disclaimer -- some of these Dan did, but we are parents together so I won't point out the ones he did in red or anything obvious like that.

1) Mixed up medicines and gave Hayden Noel's medicine, Noel Tanner's medicine, and Tanner Hayden's medicine. Confused? Good, you can see you it can happen.

2) Spilling hot coffee all over Noel as he pulled a cup off the kitchen table.

3) Had all three boys eating matches after we learned that baby proofing is NOT the same as toddler proofing.

4) Knocking Tanner off the step stool by the window causing a bloody lip and LOTS of crying -- Tanner was fine, I was the one doing all the crying.

5) Knocking Hayden off the step stool by the window causing a bloody lip -- took me twice to learn, but I finally moved the step stool away from the window

6) Knocking Noel off the step stool by the light switch causing a bloody lip -- the step stools are now put away

7) Finding Tanner running around the room with a knife because he had figured out those "baby proof" drawer locks (we now have the magnetic tot locks)

8) Burning Hayden's arm when he came to look at what was inside the oven

9) Opening a drawer right into Tanner's head as he was running past me ... with a pizza cutter in his hand he had found on top of a table

10) Finding Noel sitting in the cat box eating a kitty litter pee ball. Can I get a collective EWWWW!

Ahhh ... I feel so much better now.