Parenting Fail

On Friday, Jordyn, my mom, and I drove out to a baby/kids consi.gnment sale event about 35-40 minutes away. It was great... until the end. But I'll get to that. We managed to buy a ton of clothes including a snow suit, a few toys, a few books, a Bund.leMe lite, a lamp for the nursery, a bunch of bibs, and a Pa.li (brand) changing table and a changing pad cover for my parents' house, all for $175. Jordyn slept the whole time.

Until she woke up. As we were disassembling the changing table that as it turned out, wouldn't fit in my car. And all sales were final, so we were stuck with taking it apart to get it home, or going back by today with a larger car (which my parents both have, but of course we'd taken my car).

And she was hungry. So I decided to make her a bottle and start feeding her while my mom and the lady from the sale were finishing getting the changing table taken apart and all the pieces into the car.

But there was no formula in the diaper bag! I have a little three-section container that I keep formula in, premeasured, and it's always in the diaper bag. I bring bottles with premeasured water in them, so all I have to do is pour the formula from one section of the container into the bottle and shake it up. I had the bottles (although one had leaked into the diaper bag, awesome, but at least it was just water), but the formula container was nowhere to be found. I knew I'd had it earlier, because I made a bottle at the new moms group we'd been to before going shopping, but it had disappeared.

So Jordyn is crying because she's hungry, I'm freaking out because I can't feed her, and my mom and the lady from the sale are still taking apart the changing table. Can you say MAJOR. PARENTING. FAIL?!?

What to do?? I took Jordyn back inside - and of course this consi.gnment sale was at a place without public restrooms (seriously? who has an event to sell baby/kid stuff at a place with no bathroom?!) - sat on a step, and nursed her. I gave her as much as I could give her, which was whatever amount of brea.stmilk I'd filled up with since nursing her that morning, which I don't think was all that much. And then we booked it to the nearest grocery store and bought formula. And sat in the car in the parking lot while I fed her a bottle. And then she was finally satiated, and therefore not screaming, and I felt much better, and could breathe again. Whew!

The whole thing brought me back to the first week or two, when I tried to exclusively bre.astfeed, and it wasn't working, but I didn't know that, and I wasn't feeding my child enough, and she was hungry. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible a feeling it is to not be able to feed your child, or to find out she's been hungry and you haven't been feeding her enough!

As it turns out, I'd managed to accidentally leave the formula container at the new moms group. I got an email from one of the other moms that I'm friendly with, saying she had it, and I could pick it up from her or she could bring it to next week's meeting. So, at least I know where it was, and I can get it back. I do have a second container, which I'm using in the meantime.

I'm always so careful about checking to make sure I have formula, bottles, diapers, wipes, burp cloths, and extra clothes in the bag before I leave the house, but that system doesn't work when you leave something at the first place you go before heading to the next. I'm of course going to try to be more careful in the future, but wow, major parenting fail!