Mama knows best

Everyone has a "gut feeling" or I guess I'm assuming most people do. Pretty much we are born with an intuition about some circumstances or our subconscious tries to speak to us sometimes. As moms, we are pretty in tune with our kids and most times can sense if some situations may not be the best idea at the time.

Over my years as a mother, I can list several situations where I "should" have done what my subconscious was telling me to do but instead did otherwise and ended up regretting it. I'm not referring to all the little regrets that happen when you're a mom. There are several of those but they're easily forgiven or were purely accidental. I'm talking about the bigger ones.

I have had some pretty memorable instances that my "gut" was telling me all along not to go on that trip or not give into what my child was asking and I refused to listen. That made me so angry afterwards when it turned out bad because I knew deep down I shouldn't have gone along with that decision. There are so many times that I can still recall to this day, where the I knew it was nap time but decided we could still go out for the day ... disaster, or knew someone's eyes just didn't look right and they weren't acting themselves, but still packed up and went to visit family ... horrible weekend of fever and vomiting, or the weather was sketchy, yet we still thought it a good idea to travel ... only God got us through that one.

After this last weekend, with yet another regretful decision, I had myself a mini-meltdown and declared to my husband with a stern expression, raised voice and my finger pointing that, "From now on, if I have a feeling were not suppose to do something, gosh dang it, we ARE NOT going to do it! I mean it! I am not gonna be quiet about it anymore!"

It wasn't that last weekend's decision was one of those big disaster ideas but I've gone against my "gut" several times in the last few months and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Since last weekend was the annual, fun-filled Heritage Days in town, we wanted to take it all in and try not to miss too much. We had missed it last year, so this was actually our first time experiencing this special weekend. Of course, how it works in our family though, if there's something exciting planned, one of us likes to get deathly ill and ruin it completely or at least throw a giant wrench in the middle of it.

The 4-year-old got sick Friday afternoon, a few hours before her sister was cheering at halftime of the football game so, naturally, we had to split up and Dad stayed home and I went to the game alone. Then, after an entire night of her being up sick, I assumed the parade wasn't going to happen for us.

However, she was so upset she missed the cheering and now devastated at the thought of missing the parade. So, about 30 minutes before the parade, Daddy and I figured out a way to take her. We parked downtown in a spot where we could open the back hatch of the truck and then made a little bed for her to lie down in and still watch the parade. We had to split up again throughout the day to attend the events but we were making it work.

I "thought" the schedule had said there'd be an evening hot air balloon launch on Saturday evening. The paper had been recycled so I had no real details on the event. My first mistake was even bringing up the option of going to an event I had no real information on, instead of just staying at home and catching the Husker football game. I just felt bad he'd spent most the weekend at home with the sick one, while I ran the other two around town, so I thought he may want to get out. I offered that we could grab some sandwiches, go park where we could see the balloons, and just watch from the truck so the little sicko didn't have to get out and feel worse.

However, after a jam packed weekend, I sensed the older two girls were overly tired and reaching their limit. Maybe it was their pouty faces and stomping around, but their snide remarks to each other hinted that we'd be pushing our luck by having them sit in the same vehicle with each other. Also, after such a crazy weekend, I was feeling a little grouchy pants, myself. Deep down I really thought we better stay home, settle in and everyone head to bed early, but I never said anything.

So, out we went. First, we ran through and picked up some fast food, and told everyone to wait to eat till we got parked to watch the balloons. The big girls didn't listen and wolfed down their food, still fitting in some cat fighting in between bites.

Food finally sounded good to little sicko, so she waited for her kids meal to cool off. We drove out to where I "thought" I read the balloon launch was, only to find an empty field, no cars and NO balloons. Hubby got out to check around so I told little one to eat her food. Maybe we were just too early or maybe it was rescheduled, who knows?

Dad got back in and said maybe we should look down the road. The nagging "we should just go home" voice was whispering in my ears but I still didn't say anything. As we headed out, I heard a scream and a sad "Oh No!" from the backseat. The four year old spilled her whole cup of mandarin oranges from her kids meal in her lap and on the seat. Great! Stop the truck, get out, clean it all up, apologize to Hubby, only then to argue with Hubby about why I apologized, all the while, still not paying attention to the voice now yelling at me to, "Go Home!"

Finally, after a super fun time of still arguing with Hubby and driving aimlessly, never finding balloons, we concluded we better wave the white flag and go home.

But it didn't end there, as soon as we parked in the garage and began to unload, yet another ear piercing shriek from the backseat. Middle sister, in her attempt to crawl over the seat, dumped her entire cup of ice water on little sicko's back, which I'm sure was quite a shock to her slightly, feverish skin.

"Are you kidding me?" is all I could muster. Why? Why didn't we just stay home!

"You know, there's they saying "Father Knows Best" and I agree with that sometimes, but when it comes to the kids, most of the time, "Mama Knows Best."

None of this was at all my husband's fault but I certainly need to do a better job of listening to what my gut is telling me.

Might save us all a little brain damage!