Top Ten

I've noticed that top ten lists are all the rage this time of year, so I thought I would do one of my own. Drum-roll please...

Top 10 parenting mistakes of 2010 (in no particular order):

1. Letting Logan play with anything he wants (nothing that could hurt him of course) when I have things I need to get done. This has resulted in piles of shredded toilet paper scattered all around the house and one embarrassing incident of him appearing with part of my breast pump pressed up to his face. While I was hosting a meeting. Eh, we were all mothers at least.

2. Losing track of Logan for just one second while I was on the phone, then hearing him tumble down the stairs. Did I mention I was on the phone with his doctor's office? "Ahem, we'll be right in."

3. Allowing him to eat m&m's, chocolate chips and treats of any kind. Also, letting him see me get the good stuff from out of the pantry. Now that he knows where it comes from he'll stop at nothing to get it.

4. Letting him lick my friend's dog. Gross.

5. After cutting down our Christmas tree and bringing it home we left the saw in the front room. I knew that was a bad idea even before Logan found it and came toddling down the hallway carrying it by the blade.

6. My mom and I took Logan for his year check up and neither one of us was really paying attention as he scarfed down goldfish. Noticing that he had gotten really quiet I glanced at him to find that he was choking on all those dang fish. Right in front of the doctor. My mom stuck her finger down his throat and scooped out the mess and we blushed and stammered to the doctor that of course this never happens. My mom held that soggy mess in her fist the rest of the appointment.

7. Tyson and I took Logan out with us to dinner well, tonight actually. They gave us some crayons for him. We chuckled as he stabbed his sandwich with it, quieted as he stuck it in his mouth, and panicked as he bit the whole top of the crayon off. We both pounced on him and pried as many of the already chewed crayon bits out of his mouth as we could. He was not too happy after that and I had to spend the next several minutes walking around the restaurant with him pestering other patrons and pointing out every ceiling fan he saw.

8. I'm not sure if this is a parenting mistake or a housewife one but my neighbor warned me if I let Logan throw his cheerios on the floor of the garage we might get mice. I put off sweeping, until I noticed all the cheerios magically disappeared. Then, through some serious detective work and a trip under the house, we found that mice had chewed a hole through a heating duct. Oh. Guess my neighbor wasn't lying. Now we are trying every trick in the book to get rid of them.

9. We took him sledding a few weeks ago. We should have taken his cue of screaming while we got him dressed as a sign that things would not go well. The only time he wasn't screaming in fear or crying out of plain sadness was when we saw a dog or a bird.

10. We (and by we I mean Logan) discovered that if you push hard enough on the gate at the top of the stairs it falls. "We" also discovered that when this happens you will fall with the gate, riding it down a couple steps, until it catches and flips you into a somersault onto the landing. Thank goodness for that landing.

Well, we could have made a lot worse mistakes (and we probably did, I'm just not remembering them tonight) so I'll call 2010 a success!

Happy New Year world!