Mothers of the Year

I considered re-running a favorite post about my family from eons ago. I started a post about the political brouhaha in Pennsylvania following Obama's comment about guns and religion and how I'll tolerate his poorly chosen words and subsequent apology better than I can stomach Hillary's pandering ads that suggest people from NE Pennsylvania aren't interested in real issues but prefer to mindlessly vote for someone who used an outhouse a couple of times in her childhood because that makes her "one of us."

Neither one of those ideas turned me on though.

Then I read Kathryn's post about how she accidentally gave her wee one a fat lip. I decided to expand on the comment I left at her place regarding one of my own mother of the year moments.

Way back when Diana was just a wee infant I was changing her diaper in the middle of the night. I was devoted to being economical and earth conscious so I used cloth diapers. I had my technique down pat. One of the tricks to getting the pin to glide through the fabric with ease, especially when you had extra layers in a diaper intended to hold during sleeping hours, was to first run it through your hair or against your scalp and give it a little coating of natural hair oil. Having lubricated the pointy little implement I dug it into the diaper with my fingers between the diaper and Diana's skin so if anyone was to be inadvertently stabbed it would be me not her.

Now on this particular night I was especially groggy and since Diana was a few months old I suppose I was on autopilot. Unfortunately autopilot malfunctioned. As I pushed the pin into the diaper I met with resistance. I began to push harder and harder. Still it seemed I could not penetrate the thick layers of two diapers that would hopefully prove absorbent enough to give me (and the baby) a little extra sleep. After some moments of fruitless though continued effort I looked at my precious child's face and noticed the contorted grimace and purple hue that let me know she was just about to let loose with one of the most blood curdling shrieks ever.

Brilliantly deducing this was a sign of extreme pain I then shuddered to imagine why she was hurting. I unwrapped her diaper quickly and there noticed that I had somehow managed to get the pin past the "protective barrier" of my own fingers and had dug a lovely hole right into her hip. Diana was now in full wail and I joined her with great sobs of repentance. The bawling was surely heard for some distance. Mr. Lime was awakened by the howling and found a hysterical wife clutching a half-naked shrieking baby to her chest and apologizing in between crying jags and declarations of motherly love.

He eventually got us both calmed down and back to bed. The next morning I was still overcome with guilt. Looking at Diana's hip every time I changed her diaper didn't help matters. At some point my grandmother called just to chitchat. I poured out my tale of maternal guilt and bewailed my unfitness as a mother. She listened to it all then offered wisdom and perspective that came from time and experience...

"Oh honey, Diana will be just fine and she certainly won't remember. Every woman I knew when I was raising my kids accidentally pinned their own baby at some point. Besides, I stuck your father in a much more sensitive area and he survived."

*Gasp*