Parenting bloopers: ‘I sat there, feeding our son with a whipped cream syringe’

Inge (37): “When my neighbor and I go to the playground with our children, we often take half the street with us. Can we act just fine? And we have to do surprisingly little for that: they play, we chat on a rug. It always goes well. After an afternoon of playing we drum up all the children again, scan and count quickly, no one has lost their bicycle key, so we can go home.

Until one afternoon I saw one of the children looking rather suspiciously at the empty saddle on the front of my bicycle, before she said softly: ‘Ehh Inge, I think we’re forgetting something.’ Oh, that’s where my daughter should have been. We wouldn’t have come very far without her. When she saw us leave, she raised her throat. Until we got home, she screamed that we had forgotten her. And I thought we had counted all the heads. One, two… too many to count.”

Coffee special

Hannah (35): “Short nights, running to school and a quick cup of coffee at home before I go to work. When I see that the coffee beans are gone, I reach for a storage can while talking to my husband and fill the machine with muesli instead of beans. Also good morning…”

A tiger on the train

Mary (36): “I was so happy when the theme party at the community center was a success. For weeks I had been preparing for George in the Jungle. Everything and everyone was styled in that theme, including painted faces. Satisfied, I took the train home. My fellow travelers looked at me with raised eyebrows. I was stared at by a tiger in the reflection of the window. Forgot to put on makeup.”

little scum

Diana (30): “While I was gathering my groceries in the Hema, my daughter played endlessly with the buckle of the harness in the pram. I thought. Because when I walked out of the store and the alarm went off, I discovered that she had dumped everything into the footmuff. From toys to candles and a hug.

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Creative solution

Hella (31): “After a walk in the park with our newborn baby, I would meet my husband at a coffee shop for lunch. I arrived first, Melle was still sleeping in his car. I ordered coffee and must have prepared everything for his food. Milk powder, boiling and cold water and… No matter how many times I tipped over my huge diaper bag, I really didn’t put his bottle in it. At the bar I asked if they might have a bottle there. Unfortunately. But the cook wanted to think along with me. So when my husband came in moments later, I was feeding our son with a whipped cream syringe.”

New fashion, mom?

Janna (42): “Every morning we get up at eight o’clock, ready to go to school. Bring your bags, put on your coats and ride your bike. Always running and flying to be on time. And sometimes things go wrong. I didn’t notice, but my oldest daughter did: ‘Mom, ehhhh, I don’t know. But why are you wearing two different shoes?’”

oops…

Marlies (47): “The father rushed into the nursery where I worked. As I sat on the couch bottle feeding a baby, I watched him chatting happily to a child before picking it up to take home. Just in time I said, ‘I don’t mean to be annoying, but it’s not yours. And when you open the diaper, you’ll see why.” He had a little boy in his arms, but came to pick up his daughter. That father was ashamed and kept asking me never to tell his wife this.”

This article was previously published in Kek Mama.

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