MomFail

Have you ever done something so completely stupid that teaches you a valuable – but blindingly obvious - lesson?
 
Yeah, that happened to me last weekend. Here’s the story:
 
Last Thursday night, I went in to check on Will like I always do before going to bed. His room has a night-light, but I always take my phone with me as a flashlight since the night-light doesn’t shine into the crib. Most of the time this works just fine.
 
I guess this is the point in the story where I need to specify that my phone is an iPhone. It has the iPod on it, of course, and I have music loaded onto it though I rarely use it (I prefer Pandora radio most of the time).
 
On this particular night, the planets aligned, the stars crossed, and something went amok.
 
At 10:30 at night – after the poor child had been sleeping for three hours – I crept stealthily into his room. I made sure his lovey within reach. I re-covered him with his favorite blanket. And then I hit the iPod button on my phone and started blasting Daughtry.
 
I froze. And then I panicked. I fumbled with the controls, trying to make the music stop, but I was panicking and not thinking clearly, and it didn’t work. He started to stir (because obviously, there’s a rock concert going on in his room) and I totally freaked out, ran out of his room, down the hall, and threw my phone under my bed. Which totally didn’t help, because the music was still playing and now I can’t reach the phone.
 
Awe-some.
 
Meanwhile, DH was staring at me, dumbfounded. He had been brushing his teeth, but was now standing frozen in mid-brush.
 
The panic had subsided by this point, and I was able to fish out the phone from under the bed and turn the music off. The silence rang in my ears as I held my breath, listening for the sound of an angry, awake, toddler over the monitor.
 
After a few seconds, the silence remained unbroken and I deemed it safe to sneak back in and make sure he’s sleeping – mistake #2. Of course he’s not sleeping, but standing up in his crib and looking around to try to figure out what just happened.
 
I knew if he saw me the gig would be up, so what did I do?
 
I ran away.
 
I learned a valuable lesson from this experience: I will make sure that I never – never – again set my iPod off in my child’s room late at night. Unfortunately, that won’t stop me from doing other stupid things. Now it’s your turn – make me feel better by sharing a lesson you learned the hard way!