The Phone Call

Since I highlighted a parenting success in my last post, it seems only fair to follow with a parenting failure.  This one was pretty spectacular, so please, go back and read the success story again after this, and promise to be kind in your thoughts toward me!


This story begins with my attempt to make a phone call.  So many of my terrible parenting moments have to do with phone calls.  I go to great lengths, in fact, to never make phone calls when the children are awake.  Occasionally, an exception has to be made. 

(Now at some point in this story, you are going to be asking yourself “Shouldn’t she have just put the phone on hold for a moment while she dealt with the children?”  The answer is yes. Yes, she should have.  But all of these events took place in approximately 90 seconds, and there was no time for rational thought.)


On this particular day, I needed to call the Aquatic Center to confirm whether our swimming lessons were still taking place that afternoon.  The kids were at the dining room table snacking.  I gave them strict instructions to please be quiet for one minute while I was on the phone, and then went into our family room to make the call.  I dialed the first 9 digits, and then let my finger hover over the last button for a moment, confirming silence from the other room before executing the call.


Less than a split-second after I finished dialing, Ben came barreling into the room pushing his two noisiest toy cars across the floor.  As the phone rang once, I put my finger over the microphone and told Benjamin in my firmest voice to stop immediately or he would go to time out.  Before I had even finished my sentence, the Aquatic Center staff person (we’ll call him AC) had picked up and issued a greeting.


As I tried to put together a coherent sentence to explain my question to AC, my other two children came running into the room.  I walked to the opposite side of the room.  They followed.  Benjamin then turned around and raced the same super-loud cars back across the room, causing loud eruptions of glee from Sophie (age 6).  I couldn’t hear a word AC was saying.  Benjamin was out of my reach, facing away from me, and I was desperate to get his attention.  My large exercise ball was next to me, and I quickly kicked it in Ben’s direction, expecting it would bump him in the back and cause him to turn and look at me.  Instead, the ball flew into the air, ricocheted off of Sophie’s forehead, bounced into my computer monitor, and knocked half the contents of my desk over before landing back on the ground.


I was HORRIFIED!  Sophie started crying and ran out of the room.  I was still trying to wrap up my conversation with AC (what he was thinking on the other end, I’ll never know), and Benjamin still had those cars in his hands.  I ran over, swept up the cars, ran to the back door, and dropped them outside into the mulch.  I said a quick thank you and goodbye to AC while Ben cried “DON’T PUT MY CARS OUTSIDE!” in the background.


After I hung up the phone, I ran to find Sophie.  She was in Andrew’s room, sitting on the rocking elephant and crying.  She was startled, but luckily uninjured.  (The exercise ball is really very light…probably why it has such great lift-off.)  I gave her a big hug, told her how sorry I was, and asked if she was okay.  “Yeah…” she said, “but…did you mean to hit Ben?”  


I cringed.  “No, honey, I didn’t mean to hit anybody!”  (I mean, not really.  I certainly thought about bouncing that ball off of his head, but that wasn’t actually my intention!  I only meant to get his attention - not to injure him – I swear!)


Ben was still crying, too, supposedly over the cars, although with some prodding he admitted that Mommy had scared him with the ball.  Apologies were issued all around.  I vowed to never kick an exercise ball again.


There was one thing I wouldn’t apologize for…the cars.  They stayed in the mulch for the rest of the afternoon.  My puzzled husband got to find them on his way in from work later.


So, my dear friends and family, if you ever wonder why I rely too heavily on email and never pick up a phone to call you…this is why.  You’re welcome.