Worst mom award winner

You know how a friend might accidentally drop their child, say from the changing table or something like that? You know how they are all distressed and you tell them repeatedly not to worry about it, that their baby is fine and that it's harder on the parent than it is on the child?

Well, up until today, I could never truly empathize with the mother in those situations because I have never dropped my child. Until today. It happened so quickly, yet in such slow motion. I could see it happening, but had no way of stopping it. I keep replaying it over and over in my head, beating myself up for it, even knowing that it won't do any good. No, I dropped my son and I can't take it back.

He's not even really that badly hurt. He's got a bruise on his forehead, a scrape on his cheek, his chin and both knees. But the crying. Oh my. I'll hear that cry in my head and in my heart for a long time.

It happened innocently enough. At 30+ pounds, my son is a load to carry. Our morning walks to drop Morgan off to school are an effort in me balancing him, some keys, my coffee cup, or whatever else we have going on that day. I can't let him walk because he is just too slow and even if that didn't drive me crazy, he would get trampled on by the other students who are walking at a much faster pace. This includes his sister. So, I have to carry him. Well, the other day I had the bright idea of shoulders. So much easier, right? And it was! So, today I did the same for the trip back to the car. We were kind of in a hurry because I was meeting my friend Kristin at the park for a walk. I popped him up on my shoulders and chatted with a friend until we reached our car. When we got there, I opened the card door, grabbed him with both hands. I lifted him up off my shoulders, over my head and down to the ground where I went to set his feet on the ground. Only his feet didn't hit the ground. Instead, he toppled over forwards, into the door jam of my car and also onto the sidewalk. Like I said before, this all happened so quickly, but in such slow motion. Then the crying started.

Now, my boy is tough. He's been known to walk up to you with a huge scrape on his arm and not even care that it's there. I never worry with him that he's over exaggerating something, because he just doesn't do that. But his cry. Well, it makes me want to cry just thinking about it. He started wailing. Normally I can ask him if he's okay and he'll stop his crying and say yes and that's that. But not this time. Nope, he just kept wailing.

I held him as tight as I could. As if I could apologize for not being more careful simply by squeezing him tighter. I rocked him side to side, shushing him like a newborn, telling him over and over again, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!" Finally, his cries subsided and I got a good look at him. Then I started crying. A huge bruise on his forehead, scrapes everywhere. My fault. I shouldn't have. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry.

He looked at me and said, "Momma, you crying?" I told him I was, because I was sorry that he got hurt. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was. I just kept asking over and over again.

"Bennett, I'm so sorry you got hurt. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, Momma. Me o-tay"

Now I know how it feels. And why it's so hard to let it go.