Accidents with Children: What's Your Biggest Mommy Mishap?

What's Your Biggest Mommy Mishap?

Recently, Momversation reader Julie Sutton-McGurk of www.ultimish.com wrote in and wanted to know if she was the only mommy guilty of a mishap-- otherwise known as an "uh oh" -close call, accident moment. Well, Julie, ask and you shall receive! Hopefully these stories from Alice Bradley, Daphne Brogdon and Jessica Gottlieb will remind you that accidents happen... and to be careful!

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Showing the Latest of 41 Comments

juliemayb
9 months ago

I come from the Mommy School that teaches "Get up, tut, tut, you're fine, it's all good, now be done with it." Most of the time, this philosophy works fairly well - I always check for blood and missing teeth of course, but for the most part it's a kind of "dust yourself off and get on with life" approach. Last winter, our son was sledding with my husband near our house. I heard some carrying on and such, so I looked out the window and observed that my husband was attempting to pick up our nine year old, throw him over his shoulder, and bring him in for what looked like a trip to the E.R. When they finally got in the house, I got the full story about hitting the neighbor's fence head on and that his leg was really hurting. We checked it all out. My husband performed some"Boy Scout" test on him (like they might do out in the wild or something, I guess) and we all surmised that we had a nine year old with one heck of a bruise. He rested and, as usual, we moved on. He went on to finish out a season of third grade basketball, swim, play tennis, and do all the things nine year old boys are supposed to do in the spring and summer. Fall came along and he alerted us to this mass of squishy tissue just below his knee... right where he and a fence came to blows last winter. I panicked for a moment, made a doctor appointment, and at the end of a thorough exam and x-ray - we found out that, indeed, he had incurred a small fracture during the fence incident. The mass was the result of calcification on his bone where it had to desperately heal itself. ...and the Caring Mother of the Year award goes to... again... Yes. We felt pretty heartless and horrible about that one.

Crkelso
1 years ago

Oh I can't stop. While we were ecacuated from Hurricane Ike my father put a 6 month old twin on a full on rocking horse, let go and yelled at me to take a picture. So, um, yeah, baby fell off hit the rocker part which caused the other side of the rocker to fly up and hit het in the mouth and nose. When I got the bleeding stopped I realized my Dad was in full shut down mode. I felt bad for the both of them...

Crkelso
1 years ago

The twins were forever biting each other and nothing we did even made an inkling of difference in the behavior. Well, my mother-in-law, the matriarch on 9 kids said just pop'em in the mouth with the backs of your fingertips and that'll put a stop to it. So the very next bite I flipped my fingertips at her lips and the look of shock and awe made me think, "Well, that seems to of gotten her attention." Turned back around to see why she was still crying and lo and behold a movie style trickle of blood from her split lip right out of the corner of her mouth. Still feel horribly guilty and that was two-ish years ago.

Sramosobriant
1 years ago

Both my sons are grown now and living on their own, so they survived their childhood. But the youngest has a scar on his right ear where I nipped it while cutting his hair - on a swing. Yeah, yeah, well it was the only way he'd sit still and it was the right height and my husband was working in the yard and never said anything about the dozen other times I'd trimmed his hair that way. Lot of blood. And the doctor looking at me like I was a moron.

momoftheneveryear
1 years ago

Well with one of my kids, Sunny, she was with her friends and I was painting downstairs and I said to her and her friends, "Oh, you girls, enjoy yourselves!" and of course, to a couple of 10 year olds, this means TROUBLE. They got some rope and climbed out the window and then climbed the huge Sequoia pine in our backyard. I had to go to their parents and personally apologize.... Hahah, NEVER made that mistake again. NEVER.. :)

shawna.jackson
1 years ago

i turned my back on my daughter for like FIVE seconds while she was in the shopping cart and best buy and BAM she fell right out of the cart onto her head, right on the linoleum floor and of course, screamed bloody murder and the whole store looked at me like i was a monster. i think i cried for longer than she did.

mary.doughty.pressel
1 years ago

Ok I was prego with my twin when Chris 18mos didn't want to go inside. He threw himself to the ground but I had his hand and trying to unlock the door, I kept hold thinking concrete porch 4 steps up. I pulled his elbow out of socket. The er said he has a nurse-maid elbow and it can happen again. Luckily it is an easy fix of lifting the arm up.

mamaemma
1 years ago

So my first thought that I had about a mommy mishap was one particular incidence of negligence; i was enjoying a rare moment when my eleven month old daughter was entertaining herself and I had could type/write, etc. I'm happily typing away, look up, and she is crawling in front of me with a BBQ lighter in one hand and a pocketknife in the other. My first reaction, 'eh, good thing it takes more dexterity than most adults have to operate those things.' Don't worry i took them away, after I finished my sentence... www.redearthsafari.blogspot.com

mistiewatkins
1 years ago

My mom set me on a counter, which I immediately fell off of--I still have a slightly misshapen bottom lip, but it gives my face character so I forgive her. My daughter is clumsy (just like me). I can't even count how many times I have tried to catch her when she's tripped and instead sent her sprawling. It makes me feel guilty, but it's taught me that she bounces back quick. Some times though, I wonder if it would be better if I stopped trying to help entirely.

Karen Hawkins
1 years ago

Oh yes, I have a few. How about staring dreamily (in fairness: utterly sleep-deprived) into a real-estate broker's window while my daughter's unbraked stroller rolled to the curb and the front wheel went into the street? Daddy was not happy. And there was that middle of the night diaper-change at a relative's house, no light, no changing table. I used the top of a kind of tall bureau, got her up there & realized I didn't have a diaper or anything, let go for *one second* to get supplies and she fell about four feet (age one!) to a hard linoleum floor. Ouch, bad mommy!

What's Your Biggest Mommy Mishap?

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