My dear friend Kathy invited our family to join her family for an Easter Egg hunt that her community was putting on. We met them early for lunch, then walked over to the park where the festivities were being held. The kids started out with a pony ride, egg hunt for the littlest peeps, then off to bounce houses, and more. H, decided that he wanted to do the sack race, so our little family went over to cheer H on!
As soon as the sack races were over we went to find Kathy and her family. The middle of the park was getting really quite crowded, so we decided to walk around the back side of some of the bounce houses up on a little hill (mistake #1). Then we spotted Kathy frantically pushing her stroller around with just her son, eyes pacing the crowd, looking for her 3 year old. In an attempt to help I offered to watch her son, and that Mr. Steady would help look for her little girl.
Mr. Steady parked our jogging stroller (not the double), placing the hand break and making sure it wouldn't roll anywhere (mistake #2). Kathy handed me her stroller; I was going to watch her baby and my 3 while everyone was on the search for her little girl. We were doing great the first few minutes of me and the 4 little ones. H and Bug were staying right by me, B was content in his stroller, and Kathy's baby was happy as long as I was pushing him back and forth... really up and down on this little hill (mistake #3).
Bug turned to me and said, "Mama, I'm thirsty!" So I pointed to the top of our stroller to where her water was (mistake #4). Bug walked over and reached up as high as she could to try to get her water out of the cup holder on the stroller, and in the process pushed on the stroller.
"Bug, NOOOOOOOOOOO." Before I could do a darn thing, B-man's stroller tipped over down the little hill. It was like it happened in slow motion and I couldn't get there fast enough. All the contents of the stroller spilled all over the hill. B was startled, but not hurt at all. I quickly un-strapped B, and a sweet stranger helped me get the stroller up-right and picked up all of my spilled items.
By the time I snuggled my little man and made sure he was ok, Kathy was back. And she said to me, "Did you realize that you let my stroller go and it rolled down the hill with my baby in it??? A stranger had to stop it." (mistake #5) AHHHH, what in the world! In all of the CHAOS around my kids I had let Kathy's baby cruise down the hill and DID NOT even realize it at all! Mortified, I was way embarassed by this point in time. Kathy laughed at me, and was so sweet in forgiving me for being so careless.
Again, I had to take a few deep breaths, the anxiety in my chest was seriously making it hard to breath! I was so thankful that both baby boys were okay! B was now calm and happy, I decided not to put him back into the stroller (thought that might be a little tramatic), so I pulled out my Becco (baby carrier) and started strapping it on me to put him in. I couldn't do up the last strap while holding him, so I set him down on the grass at my feet (mistake #6). As soon as he was sitting, his little top-heavy self flipped forward and started rolling down the hill. By this time, I am feeling completely incompetent to do the simplest of mothering duties, and completely embarrased, swetting from the stress! It is almost comical how out of control the last 5 minutes have been. I scoop up my little man, put him in the carrier, apologizing to him over again that he could have been hurt and that he was scared!
I was ready for this craziness to be over... and I thought it was over... Well until, H walked up to the jogging stroller, hardly leaned against it and it tipped over again! (thankfully, without baby this time). At that moment I decided that it was time to get the heck out of dodge. What else could possibly go wrong on the tiny little hill??? I am sure we provided some great comic relief for some on-lookers, some may have even deemed me worst mom of the year!
I guess it just proved the point of the stranger from Costco last week... I better not have another. 4 kids might tip me over the edge... at least it did momentarily on that grassy hillside at the park!
Oh Kelly, these things happen to the BEST of moms! Don't beat yourself up! Once I knew all the little ones were okay I busted up laughing while reading this story! I feel like things like this happen to me nearly every time I am out in public...and I only have two kids at the moment....I don't even want to think about what it will look like when this third one comes along!
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