Mommy mishaps

It seems I have been constantly crawling in a hole since we've been down here in FL. I took Grant to a little park here on base a few days ago to get us out of the BOQ for a while. I'd been looking for a "toddler sized" playground for a while to no avail and so we went to the big kids playground. It is a very tall playground, with lots of steep, narrow metal stairs. Once you get to the top, there are many openings where little ones can jump off to the ground. It's pretty high up, and Grant hasn't figured out if he walks off the side of the playground, he will fall very fast and very hard. So naturally I didn't want him up there all by himself. He loves slides and there were lots of very long, very tall slides at this particular play area and he picked the one that was a tube to sit down at and prepare to go down to the ground - mostly because that's the one all the bigger kids were going down. So I helped him get situated at the top of the slide and told him to wait for a moment while I ran to the bottom to catch him. I hadn't taken 3 steps when I looked down at the bottom of the slide and out of the opening of this tube slide comes flying little Grant - completely airborne - landing face first in the sand at the bottom, about 5 feet away from the opening of the slide itself. I was mortified! There's all these other moms around looking at me like I had done something terrible, and little Grant is laying sprawled out on the ground in shock. It didn't take him long to recover, and he didn't even cry, which I was proud of, but I sure was embarrassed. I wasn't sure what to do because Grant certainly wanted to play, but Chris wasn't around to help me catch Grant, so there was another mom kind enough to offer to catch him the next time. But he had learned his lesson. He's learned how to stop himself at the bottom of the slide now. Thank goodness! A couple of days later, we decided to get his hair cut. I had tried, but failed miserably, so we yook him to a place on base, and he got his first military haircut. I have many friends who have good little boys who, much younger than Grant, will sit very still and quite happily, if they have a sucker in their mouth while they're getting their hair cut, so I thought it was worth a shot. The last time I was at the bank, I picked up a sucker, not paying any attention to what kind it was, and stuck it in my purse. So when we got there, I confidently pulled it out and gave it to him. Much to my dismay, it was a chalky blue color. He stuck it in his mouth and the thick, blue colored saliva started flowing clear down his face, down his arms and all over his outfit. And then they started cutting his hair. Here I am, the only woman in the shop, trying to hold my son down in the chair because he is flailing himself all over. He had his sucker in one hand, his head thrown back in a full scream, and a yucky nose because he was crying so hard along with the blue spit that continued flowing. He was a disaster. So we got his hair cut, about 10 big tough military guys stood around watching and laughing, and when we were done, they were there with napkins to try to help me clean him up, but I sure felt like I didn't know what I was doing. You'd think military guys have seen it all - evidentally not, according to the many faces of disgust that we saw when they would take a glance at my son. How embarrassing. Luckily, we were all cleaned up by the time daddy came home, and Chris was thrilled, commenting that it was "military standard." He even said that was his favorite part of his day. Later that same day, I had stepped into the bathroom for a moment. While Grant had been napping, I had eaten part of a Snickers bar and stuck the uneaten part on the bedside table, basically forgetting about it. Well, you can't hide anything from Grant. While I stepped into the bathroom, Grant quickly got it out of its wrapper and in to his mouth. There was about 1/4 of a candy bar left. So when I came out of the bathroom, there was a little boy grinning at me a big, cheesy grin with chocolate dripping down his chin. He was very happy, and he actually ate the whole thing, peanuts and all, before I could stop him. He's a stinker. Sometimes I think I've got this whole thing figured out. And then there are weeks like this one where I think the world must think I'm absolutely clueless, and I must admit, sometimes I wholeheartedly agree!!!