Parenting FAIL #327

It has been too hot to write or even to think about writing today. Now, I'm sitting on the couch, with a fan blowing the cool evening air on me, trying to get some inspiration. :) I can feel the brain cells seeping back into my body with each blast of cold air....aaaahhhhh....

So, yeah, we're wimps up here in western NY, but we also have no a/c. So when it's hot, we can't get away from it. I mean, seriously, NOTHING up here has a/c - schools, churches, houses...well, some houses probably do, but not ours. So today it got up to 86 degrees or some ridiculous thing like that, and we're stuck with a fan blowing hot air in the window & out the window on the other side of the room.

Now that I've got THAT little whine out of my system...I shall proceed to share with you my parenting FAIL from this afternoon. (just an aside: does anyone else think the word FAIL is hilarious? Have you seen those pictures of really dumb things/people/animals that say FAIL on them really big? I really do think they're pretty funny.) But, back to the story...

First of all, what would you rather do on an 85 plus degree day than take your one-year-old to the camp playground in the middle of the sweltering afternoon? Just a dose of family fun for us. We walked up, let Z play on the swing & slides, and then he just wanted to run around and explore. Let me preface my fail by explaining that this camp playground is right across from the camp office, where I work several days a week, and most of those days, I take Z out to the playground area to play before we go home. So I pretty much know what he likes to do, and where he'll probably head next. So when he trotted away from the playground, towards the office building, I assumed he was headed to the front doors - for some reason, he loves to spend endless minutes running up and down the ramp to the entryway. Hubby says to me, "Are you just going to let him run off?"

"Yeah, I know where he's going...over to the entrance", I say nonchalantly...

"Um, it doesn't look like that's where he's headed", Hubby observes.

And I begin to get concerned when I notice that Z is indeed NOT heading for the ramp, but instead, he is running, chubby toddler legs churning furiously, in a direction he has NEVER before explored, towards a bridge that stands about five feet over a creek...not towards the bridge, even, but towards the 'cliff' to the side of the bridge. So of course I take off running like a maniac, and am able to catch his arm about one second before he could've plunged over the edge to his death!

So, there's my biggest parenting FAIL for the day. Tomorrow, I'll be keeping a much closer eye/hand on Z at all times! :)