Parenting Fail

I’ve only been a parent for 4.5 years. I was not prepared for how steep of a learning curve accompanied this new role in my life. Like when you’re pregnant, people say so many conflicting things. “Oh, parenting is the sweetest, most enjoyable thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing!” or “Parenting is a battlefield. You’d better gear up, soldier.” Um, okay. Neither of those pieces of “advice” actually helped me figure anything out.

But I didn’t read any parenting books either. Why? Certainly not because I thought it all figured out. The reason I didn’t read any parenting books is probably because I was too busy internally screaming about how much my life was about to change to focus on anything else. Ha.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to be a mom. I loved and prayed for that little baby boy from the moment I knew he existed. I was also 20 years old. My husband and I were still newlyweds when we found out Little Man was on his way. We were both freaking out a little, give us a break.

4.5 years later and I’m weeks away from bringing another child into this world. And I’m back to that stage of totally freaking out.

Especially after a day like today. A day where I’ve been confronted with my failures…mistakes I made because I didn’t realize how much they’d affect my son.

As a first-time mom, I was ignorant of some things. I mean, my Little Man met and exceeded milestones and was on track, so I must’ve known some things, right? What I didn’t know was how bad things like juice and fruit snacks were for little teeth. Or how training toothpaste didn’t really offer any protection against these evils.

So at 4 years old, my Little Man is in for some extensive dental work. And it’s my “fault.” It’s even worse because we’ve been dragging our feet to get the problems corrected because…money.

But today was the last straw. After 4 crying meltdowns because his one tooth was hurting so bad after eating grapes, I had it. I wrote a semi-grumpy post on facebook asking for dentist recommendations, found one I liked and made the appointment for tomorrow.

I talked to my husband about it and he agreed that it needs to be taken care of now, even if money is tight. And then we spent a few minutes on the phone feeling the weight of everything. Feeling frustrated with our failures. Feeling sorry that our son is in pain. Feeling. Like. Crap.

So, that’s where I’m at today. Feeling pretty crappy and wondering if I know anything about raising one kid, let alone two.

But then I remember the conversation I had a few nights ago about salvation and what it means to have Jesus in his heart. Then I feel a little better. At least I’m doing something right. He may need to have 5 dentist visits to fix his teeth that I screwed up…but he knows what it means to have Jesus inside of him. That feels like a silver lining.

Do you have a similar parenting “fail” you’d like to share? Leave me a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.