I am not a Terrible Parent...

Remember the little incident that happened on Sunday that I talked about yesterday? You know, the one about my son having a meltdown on his first bike ride? Well, if you missed it, you can read about it here.

Let's just say I have never been so embarrassed or upset about my son's behavior that day.  For some reason, I was being very hard on myself for the way I we responded to the whole situation. I felt like I am failing as a parent for allowing him to act that way and then for letting him cry it out in his crib for half an hour...I mean, I was literally sick to my stomach about it. Then I came across this article yesterday and it's like someone knew I needed to hear this:

Quote found in this article.

Can I get an AMEN?!!  Seriously.  I want to kiss the man who wrote this article because if you are being true to yourself, we have all been here at one point or another.  And not just when your toddler is having a meltdown in the middle of Target, but every day!

After reading that, I reevaluated my parenting skills and techniques, and have come up with some "I am not a terrible parent" conclusions...

I am not a terrible parent just because:

• I let my child have a drink of caffeine free soda every once and awhile. (He has had a sip of Mt. Dew once, but that was a shit show, so we will never make that mistake again!  Just picture a toddler on steroids, bouncing off and running into the walls. Not kidding.)
• I let him eat his "whole grain" Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets in front of the TV while watching an episode of Bubble Guppies.
• I let him pick out his outfit for the day and he ends up wearing his footed pajamas with his cowboy boots over the top.
• When he asks for a cookie after dinner I let him have one.

  

  This boy loves him some brownies too!

• I sometimes lock myself in the bathroom after I told him that "Mama just has to go potty really quick" only to not come out for 15 minutes because I need some alone time!
• I take 10 self pictures of myself when I feel like I'm having a good hair or outfit day, and then not take a single one of my child all day long.

  

  Definitely guilty of a few "selfies"

• The sound of his whining makes me want to scratch my ears off!
• I look forward to nap time.
• I bribe my child with suckers and treats just to get him to do something that he really doesn't want to do.

I could literally go on and on and on, but I will stop with this for now because I think you get the idea.  Like I've said before, I only want to keep things real on this blog.  If you don't agree with some of my parenting tactics, that is perfectly fine.  I don't expect you to.  All that matters is that at the end of the day, I would not trade my little man for ANYTHING in the world!  There are definitely more good days than bad, but I just wanted to remind myself that even in those bad days, I really am doing ok.  M is happy, healthy and a true two year old.  He tells me he loves me every night, and that makes me feel like I must be doing something right.

He still loves me :)