I Am a Bad Mommy

[Teysa]

I fell down the stairs at my grandparent's place back in Pennsylvania. I don't remember much about it considering I was only three at the time. According to my grandma, I fell head over heels all the way down the stairs. Fortunately, I didn't have anything more than a few bruises. Shortly after that, my mom taught me how to sit down on the steps and scoot down. I did that until my legs grew long enough to navigate the stairs more easily.

I bumped my head more times than I could count as a kid. I also got my share of scraped knees. It wasn't my mom or dad's fault. I was just a klutz. Then again, I still am.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I personally fell down a flight of metal edged formica stairs all the way into the basement while in a walker.

My mom said she was scared to look, she just knew I was dead. I wasn't even injured.

[Tanasi]

Sounds like it's a wonder any of us grew to adulthood.

The house I grew up in had in the floor furnance with an expanded steel cover over it. I was about 2 or 3 and it was real cold and Mom had the heat turned way up. I was running, tripped and landed hands on the cover. The pattern from the cover was burned into my hands. Mom said I cried myself to sleep that night. The next day Mom made Dad put up a railing around it so it didn't happen again.
When I was about 11 or 12 I was helping my Dad build a barn. My middle brother was about 6 and underfoot so Dad gave him a hammer some nails and scrap lumber and told him to build something. He was trying to drive a nail into a knot and rared back with the hammer and scalped himself. He sunk the hammer claws into the back of his and and pulled, tearing his scalp loose. Well Dad was concerned enough to actually get off the barn and tend to him. I don't know how many stiches it took but his head was shaved in an odd pattern and school pictures were later that week.
When my oldest was about 15 months old I was riding her around the farm on the four-wheeler. I got off with her in one arm to remove some sticks off the electric fence. Well I tripped and she fell on the fence and it started ramping up the voltage. She was screaming bloody murder. I got her off the fence and while going back to the four-wheeler I tripped again and she went face first into a cow pie. She wouldn't come near me for a few days (not that I blamed her) but it nearly broke my heart as he was and still is Daddy's girl and Warrior-Princess.
I have four other kids and I haven't scratched the surface on what's happened to them. Accidents happen and luckily kids are tougher than we think they are.

[BookstoreEscapee]

He was trying to drive a nail into a knot and rared back with the hammer and scalped himself. He sunk the hammer claws into the back of his and and pulled, tearing his scalp loose.

My dad once caught my mom in the head with a fish hook. Through her hat. They had to go to the hospital to get it removed.

[InsanityInc]

You're not a bad mommy. As others have said, shit happens. With children, fairly often.

If you want bad timing, I was temping at the local child protective services over the holiday season. The day BEFORE I was going to take Lil Insanity to get her Santa picture she fell off my bed and faceplanted on the corner of my nightstand. Beautiful corner shaped bruise directly under her eye. And of course, I'd been bragging about her at work, and saying that I was taking her to go see Santa. Naturally everybody wanted to see her pictures. Had a lot of explaining to do.

They understood (most of them were parents as well), but I took a lot of ribbing about for a while.

[fireheart]

My little second cousin wound up smacking his head against the bars of his playpen the other night (he's about 7-8 months old). Poor little guy.

He was in the playpen with my fourth cousin (same age), when fourth cousin started crying because he missed his mummy. Second cousin however, tried to pull himself up to standing position (he's at that stage, where he'll do it, but he'll fall down a lot-ditto for crawling), then sort of fell forward and his head hit the bars.

Fortunately his dad was around, I was watching them as well. Turns out that the little tacker had been falling down quite a bit and had a few bruises as a result. He was always being supervised...

[RavenStarr]

You are not a bad mommy. Accidents happen even when we do our best to prevent them.

I know I have felt the same way myself, when 1 of my boys got hurt.