I’m pretty sure we all have them. Moments in motherhood we are not proud of or even embarrassed about. Times we tried and failed. Horribly. You have this idea of the kind of mom you want to be. Supermom, probably. And then there is the reality of sleep deprivation, teething, whining, work and you know, being human. Today I am sharing with you some of my mom fails. Some are rather epic, others just day-to-day reminders of the fact that I’m not perfect. Some I am extremely embarrassed about or scared the sh*t out of me, because they were potentially dangerous. Others I can laugh about, kind of. Maybe. One day.

# Momfail I

One day I was folding laundry in our bedroom. Isaya was playing in the bathroom, which is right across the hall. I had a clear view into the bathroom. Aya was sitting on the bathroom floor, chatting and playing happily with her bath toys. I tought to myself, ‘aah, look at my sweet baby, entertaining herself, such a good little lady.’ I put away some clothes and my mind wandered. All of a sudden I knew something was off, because I didn’t hear her anymore. If you are a mom you know the absence of sound is usually a sign of trouble. So I took the five steps from bedroom to bathroom and there was my sweet baby, bent over the toilet, her hands AND her mouth wet.

# Momfail II

If you’ve read my ‘Veggie Lifestyle‘- blogs, you know how much I value healthy, vegetarian (or vegan), organic food. I think it is very important to take good care of your body, take responsibility for the environment and have respect for animals. Aya has been given vegan meals the first year of her life and after she turned one we slowly introduced things like cheese and yoghurt. We offer her a lot of vegetables, fruits, whole grain products and tofu and stay away from candy and processed foods. But still, my daughter’s favorite food in the whole world is… French fries.

# Momfail III

As I have mentioned before, Isaya is not the greatest sleeper. She has slept through the night once – last Friday – it was epic and a one time thing apparently. This is not an excuse for what I am about to share next. But it will give you a bit of context. I am one tired mama. So a while back I was in a hurry. We were supposed to meet a friend at a certain time and I was late. I hate being late. Well, I hated being late. Because after that day I don’t care anymore. Some things are just more important than being on time. I ran up the stairs to grab a few last things. I had Aya in my arms and as we arrived upstairs I put her down and collected what I needed. When I came back I found my baby standing at the top of the stairs, looking down. I had forgotten to close the safety gate.

# Momfail IV

I am not a fan of TV. I don’t watch a lot of television and I don’t want my child to watch TV. Research shows that TV is bad for the development of a small child’s brain. Everyone who knows me, knows how how passionate I feel about this. We were successful in keeping Isaya away from the television the first year of her life. Then we started to show her little clips of herself, during meals. She loved watching herself walk, talk and laugh on our phones and it distracted her enough to eat a little more. After a while we started to show her songs on YouTube. Nursery Rhimes, sang by ‘real people’, surrounded by ‘real children’. We told ourselves ‘well, at least she is eating. And this isn’t too bad’. And then I discovered ‘ChuChu TV’. All I’m going to say about this is that whenever she hears the intro, her face lights up, her hands go into the air and the sandwich goes into her mouth…

# Momfail V

Aya is a little young for potty training. But we do exercise ‘elimination communication’. What this means is that I watch Aya very well and when I suspect her of having to go, I put her on her potty. Usually once a day, in the morning, she will walk up to the cabinet that holds her beloved BEcoPotty and indicate she wants to sit on it. There is no pressure, on days she’s not feeling it, she doesn’t have to use it. And whenever she does and is successful I applaud her and we have look at what she has produced. The other day she was so proud of the results and encouraged by my excitement she bent over and took a nice handful of poo. Epic.