Day 54 The Perfect Mom Project

An interesting story came up yesterday. A little 6 year old boy in Colorado was said to have taken off in his families(they are amateur storm chasers)weather balloon. The balloon was 20 feet long and 5 feet high. His brothers said that they had seen him climb into the balloon and then saw it take off. The national media grabbed on to the story and followed the balloon as it traveled for the next two hours. All the while everyone fearing for this little boys life.

Once the balloon landed safely it was discovered that he was not in the balloon and then the media started speculating about whether or not the boy had fallen out of the balloon, and a search began for the little boy. About 5 hours into this, the little boy came walking out, he had been in the garage attic, afraid that his parents were mad at him for releasing the balloon, he had hidden away. This was a relief, but then the media started speculating on whether or not it was a hoax. There was also a lot of comments about the parents and how they were not watching the children. There was actually a lot of negative comments about the parents.

This event had me thinking how many times with my own children I have made decisions that I thought were fine and then realized too late that it was probably a bad idea. Once when my oldest daughter, Ashleigh, was about 6 years old, I stopped at the grocery store. I was planning to run in grab some milk and head right home, a quick stop. As I was getting out of the car, I said to Ashleigh "Stay here, do not get out of the car, I will be right back". I ran in to the store, got the milk I needed and ran out. As I was walking into the parking lot I see Ashleigh with the car window rolled down, standing up on the car seat waving at me yelling " Hi Mommy!" I was furious, "What are you doing?!?" Ashleigh replied, "You said not to get out of the car."

Another time, I watched as my cute little 3 year old Aly packed her little backpack with food. She was packing little boxes of raisins and other snack foods. I thought to myself how cute she was and went back to whatever I was doing. Some time later, my neighbor knocked on the door, when I opened it he handed me Aly and little 18 month old Avery. They had decided to run away with his daughter who was 5 years old at the time. He had caught them all walking hand and hand down the street.

There are so many of these moments in my child rearing life, that I am embarrassed. However, that's what kids do. As parents we are not able to police every waking moment of a child's day. It would be great if we could, but it is just not realistic. Listening to the commentators on the television last night calling this families parenting style into question really made me angry. All the details are not out yet about what exactly happened, and hopefully it was just an innocent childhood mistake. If that is the case, I do not think we need to beat up the parents. First of all they are already beating themselves up. Second of all, Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

Making my way towards perfect parenting has suddenly become a little distasteful. I do not want to become someone that thinks that everything I do is right. I am kind of happy loping along somewhat imperfect if it means that I can see life as it really is. Life is sometimes messy and complicated. Things do not always go like we want them too. Your kids hear you telling them not to do things and they do them anyway. Ahhhh...I think I will reflect on all of this today and enjoy the fact that I am less then perfect for a change!