Things parents shouldn't do

Yes its true, and even healthy to admit every once in awhile that we parents make mistakes! But in our household those mistakes are mostly made by my husband....ha ha ha...NOT! I was sadly reminded of this fact a few days ago! but first let me tattle-tell on Brandon because that is more fun anyways...don't worry I will get to me.
A few weekends back we decided to go on a family picnic. I had just spent the day cleaning out the shed and found a wicker picnic basket that was given to us for our wedding. I thought it would be fun to pack up dinner and walk to the park with our authentic picnic basket and have some fun family time. As I was doing the last min packing (If you are a mom you understand what this means. Running around the house like a crazy person trying to think of anything you might need that would make this outing easier on you. Grabbing things like jackets, a change of clothes, your child's favorite drink, toys, and lollipops in case of an emergency bribing session. This process is very important because if you forget anything your entire trip may be ruined and end in tears and tantrums and I am not talking about the kids!) Brandon was outside loading the kids into the double stroller...unattended I might add. The evening was beautiful, the sea breeze was sweet. We took off singing "the ants go marching" it was perfect. Well almost. The stupid authentic wicker picnic basket was to big and heavy to fit in the bottom of the stroller so after watching Brandon make many failed attempts of holding onto the heavy basket with one hand and pushing the stroller with the other I offered to push the stroller and Brandon carried the picnic basket. We happily made it all the way to the last crosswalk before the park and I realized that the curb for the crosswalk was rather high and I was going to need some momentum to get over it. So I sped up and gave the stroller a strong push but instead of the stroller going over the curb it full force hit it and Peyton went flying out of the stroller onto the sidewalk! Of course my first reaction was to cradle my crying daughter in my loving arms and kiss the injury's....well ok maybe not my first reaction...My first reaction was to yell at my husband of course... "You didn't strap her in! What are you thinking?" Peyton's foot was bleeding and scratched up in several places and I made the mistake of showing her the blood which made her cry even harder. So Brandon scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way to the park. I got the stroller safely over the curb with Amber still in it. Concerned about Peyton's foot I began walking quickly to catch up with them when all of the sudden I felt the weight change in the stroller and I stopped and looked down and Amber had slid down into the basket of the stroller. In disbelief I thought, He didn't strap her in either?! I yelled at the top of my lungs "This is why you aren't allowed to be alone with these kids for any significant amount of time because they might die!!!" It was at that moment that I noticed a nice elderly couple walking by us with disapproving glances...oops. We asked Peyton if she wanted to go home and she said no. So we stayed at the park despite the constant complaining and crying out "I miss my foot!" which I thought was very philosophical of her. Brandon feeling a tad bit guilty I am sure, told her we could stop for ice cream on the way home and that seemed to heal it right up. I of course forgave Brandon but not without telling the story to several friends and family and giving him a hard time for the next few days. Brandon told me later that he made the conscious decision to not strap them in because he decided that they were old enough now. Whatever!
Ok so fast forward to this weekend...this is my failed parent story...told you I would get to it...So I was vacuuming the house. Amber is our little scardy cat. She is scared of a lot of random things like, a voice talking back to her on the telephone, or when mom has a towel on her head after the shower and Santa Clause, Easter Bunny forget it but, nothing is more frightening to her than the vacuum. So the moment she saw me getting the horrible thing out she hurried into her bedroom to hide. Peyton loves to "help" me vacum so she was "helping" and I could tell Amber was feeling left out. She wanted to be apart but just couldn't get up the nerve. I watched her out of the corner of my eye peeking around the doorway at us but then jumping back in if we got anywhere near her. It was pretty cute. When we were all finished vacuuming I thought I would have a little "fun." I waited by Amber's door for her to peek out again and I was going to pretend to push the vacuum towards her. (I know mean huh?) Well instead of her peeking out this time she must have finally got up the nerve to walk out of the doorway and she walked right into the vacuum...not knowing that it was there she freaked out and thinking that she was running back through the doorway she ran smack into the wall!!! In just the few sec that it took me to get to her and scoop her screaming body up I could see a huge bump already forming on her forehead. Boy...did I feel horrible and of course Brandon did not go light on the guilt trips.
So the moral of the story...we are not perfect. At least our kids forgive us and still love us despite our faults. Well at least for now they do, I don't even want to think about the teenage years. I try to pretend that those don't exist for us.