True Story Tuesday - Mommy Fail!

As always, thanks to Rachel and Mr. Daddy who host this little "embarrass ouselves" party each week.

Head on over there for some more horrifying, "I can't believe he/she did that, I'm so going to use this as a bribe/extortion against my blog buddies" stories.

Mommy Fail

Many years ago, when my children were still small and cute we joined my parents for a vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  I was super excited because it was the first "real" vacation my children and I had had together (and, quite possibly, the last - after all, I was a struggling single mother of three who wasn't getting any child support.  Life is very different now).

Monster, my youngest, was seven years old at the time and  prone to not being able to sit still.  He still can't.  The thought of him strapped into an airplane for more than, oh, five minutes, was not a pleasant one.  But we were going to Mexico, by God, and he was going to have to sit still and not get us thrown off the plane.  Even he was worried about how he was going to get there alive.  I assured him I had a plan, for I know very well the virtues of the extra-label use of Benadryl, so I bought some cherry-flavored children's chewables.  I assured him that the Benadryl would just make it easy for him to sleep on the plane and that when he woke up we'd be in Mexico.

Worked like a charm.  Dosed him up when we got to the gate and by the time we took off, his little head was nodding.  Score one for Mommy.

A few days later, we went out on a party boat (no, that's not the Mommy Fail) for some snorkeling and a lunch at a "private" island (which must have been co-owned by about forty other party boats).  Then we sailed over to another island for a hike back into a pretty waterfall.  The day was going beautifully.  Well, except for the chaffing on poor Digger's thighs from the lining of his wet swim trunks during the hike (no, that's not the Mommy Fail either!).

On the way back to Puerto Vallarta, there was music and dancing on the deck.  We all had a good time dancing around, right up until Monster stepped on a bee and got stung.  He dropped like a rock and started crying (hell, I would have too).  One of the crew scooped him up, took him to the bar and ordered up some tequila.  He poured the tequila over Monster's foot, scraped the stinger out and then put a cotton ball soaked with tequila on the sting.  Monster was in heaven.  For the remainer of the trip, if his cotton ball began to look like it was drying up, we had to put more tequila on it.

We got back to the condo without any problems or any further complaints from Monster about his foot.  The tequila seemed to have done its job of numbing up the bite.

At bedtime, though, his little foot started to itch and burn, so I went to get the Benadryl.

As soon as he saw me with the Benadryl, he wailed, "I don't want to go to sleep!  I want tequila!"

And that, my dear blog buddies, was the Mommy Fail.

It took a long time to convince him that Benadryl was actually for bee stings and that the sleepiness was just a bonus.  I don't remember if we ever got him talked into taking the Benadryl or not, to be honest.

Yay!  Y'all've just read my 200th post!!!

I had no idea, when I started this blog, where it would go, or if it would go anywhere at all.

I was clueless about blog etiquette (still am for the most part - there are so many "rules"),

But I'm getting the hang of it.

I didn't know if anyone would read my blog, other than my family.

And then I got my first followers and they've been so loyal (Thanks K. and T!nK),

My own bloggy support group.

In the past year, new followers have signed up and stayed with me.

How crazy is that?

I've never done a give-away before, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Don't count on it happening often.

Unless TALES FROM THE TRAIL sells,

But that's a whole different story.

So...comment away...

Ten randomly drawn commenters will receive a copy of a book from my favorite GunDiva,

Tara Janzen.

Be sure to check back for the winners!

And, please, for the love of God, if you've never commented before,

Quit lurking!

You may miss out big.

Really big.

Thank you, everyone, for helping me celebrate my 200th post.  I entered everyone's name (well, except Allenspark Lodge) into a Random Name Picker provided by Classtools.net and chose ten winners, who will be announced tomorrow (Wednesday, March 24th).