There is no denying that I dropped the ball once again.  I’m not talking about dropping the ball when you are playing second base and the game is on the line, which I have done as well.  I am talking about dropping the “parenting” ball.  Have you ever done something that you know is wrong but just can’t stop yourself anyway? Well this is one of those stories……this is the tale of a cat named Peaches.

Now, this isn’t about what actually happened, because that was awful enough on its own, but it is more about the events that spiralled out of control following the traumatic event.

We were on the hunt for the perfect kitten and I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted a fluffy, mouse eating calico kitty so I went to a gal from work who’s cat had just had such kittens. She told me that she had a perfect little calico who was born to barn cats so mousing should come instinctively and that was all I needed to know. I waited patiently until she was old enough to leave her mommy and surprised the kids with her when I got home from work one night. We were so happy to have this fluffy little ball of cuteness and decided to name her Peaches.

The girls were 10 & 8 and our son was only 2 when Peaches joined the family and we were all in love with our new precious kitty.  I did however, catch our 2 year old trying to wash her in the toilet but that’s another story for another day. Anyway, my husband worked shift work so he was home one afternoon (luckily) before the bigger kids got home from school and I couldn’t find little Peaches anywhere.  I was sure that one of the kids had left a door open and she had gotten outside where an eagle or a cougar had gotten her.  I was so annoyed and scared that she was gone and we would never find her. My husband and I searched up and down our street and into the bushes looking for her to no avail so I had no other option but to carry on with my mom duties for the rest of the day.

Dishes, vacuuming, mopping floors, cleaning the toilets and laundry were the chores for the day and did I ever get a shock when I reached in the dryer to take the laundry out and copped a feel of something soft and fluffy.  I will never forget the sinking feeling when all the blood rushed out of my face while trying to calmly call my husband into the laundry room without freaking out our son, to see if, in fact, it was the cat. I so wished it wasn’t, but sadly, it was. That’s right, poor little Peaches had crawled in the dryer without my knowledge and I had thrown laundry in and turned on the dryer.  Now, I feel like sh$# even to this day, but……………….

What happened next is where I really failed, as if the dryer incident wasn’t enough.

The girls came home from school excitedly wanting to play with their kitty but I took the cowards way out and told them that the cat had somehow gotten out and I couldn’t find her anywhere. Mommy fail #1 right there. Some would think this was harmless enough, but they wanted to make up posters to put up around town saying the cat was missing and if found to please call (250-287-bigfatliar). So, cowardly, I let them.  Mommy fail # 2.  I then drove them around town to put them up at the various mailboxes.  Mommy fail # 3. Those poor kids would spot a calico cat walking around and say, “wait mom, I think that’s Peaches, stop, let’s go check”. And I would calmly tell them “no honey, I don’t think that’s her” then I would make up some bullsh$# story as to why I believed it wasn’t her.  Mommy fail # 4. This went on for months until they finally accepted that Peaches had been eaten by a stupid eagle or a stupid cougar. And by months, I mean almost 15 years…….yes, this is where Mommy fail # 5 comes in, the mother of all mommy fails.  I locked the info into my memory vault, never to be spoken of again, or so I thought.  Other than the times my family would make jokes about naming our next animal Bounce or Fleecy or some other laundry type name, we never spoke about little Peaches.

Fast forward to when the girls were in their early 20’s and our son was 17 or so and we were out swimming at the lake with one of my nieces, who apparently knew what had happened to the cat (believe me, it wasn’t me that told her, do you really think I could do that after all that time?).  Anywho, they were out on a log and I was swimming along merrily in the lake when she happened to mention poor Peaches and her demise, and the kids were less than amused to say the least…..they had no idea and to be honest, I would have quite happily taken it to my grave, but the jig was finally up!  When I heard the conversation taking place, I wanted to tie a rock to my feet and blissfully go under, to escape what was to come. I tried to back pedal but I just couldn’t justify why I did it, except for to keep them from being heart broken. Don’t we all want to shield our kids from heartbreak? I may have taken it too far though. All I could do was apologize profusely.

That mommy fail was all too real, and I still feel badly about it. Lesson learned, don’t let your kids put up posters all over town for a cat that you know is never coming

home.  Be a woman and tell the truth.  There have been many more mommy fails through the years and like this one, they will be funny memories we all laugh about together when we are older and thankfully there were no other animals hurt in the process. I think we are ok now, at least they still talk to me, which I will consider forgiveness!

Are you a real mom like me who has had some mommy fails that you can tell me and make me feel better about my own shortcomings??

Let me know what your biggest mommy fails were, I can’t wait to hear them!

Until next time

Raegan