Calling for End-of-Summer Parent of the Year Nominations!

That's my kid in the pink sundress. The one with the look on her face that says, "You have NO idea how hard I'm about to humiliate you."

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times… who am I freaking kidding? It was hot as seven hells outside and my kids and I were certifiably insane. It was too hot to swim. Do you even understand how hot it has to be outside for it to be TOO HOT TO SWIM? We went to the pool and I was sweating in the water. That doesn’t seem like it should be scientifically possible but I am telling you, it happened.

My efforts to survive would lead to one of my finest parenting moments of the summer.

One of my dearest friends invited my children to host a lemonade and cupcake stand with her own daughters. Our girls had decided at church that they needed to do something about the orphans and the poor in this world. The obvious solution was to make their mothers bake cupcakes which they would use their cuteness to sell and Voila! The end of world hunger.

I was so desperate to get out of the house that I didn’t give a second thought to the 400 degree heat index, I agreed we would come. But after a day full of activities: a trip to the library where my six-year-old proudly received her first library card, and swimming at our rec center where my five-year-old almost swam the width of the pool with me swimming and cheering by her side– I was entirely too tired to make cupcakes from scratch. Their cause would have to suffer store bought cupcakes.

We sold cupcakes and dodged traffic like Strawberry Shortcake and Frogger had had a baby. It was hot, the kids stood entirely too close to the road and the mothers panicked. I found myself in an almost catatonic state, scooping ice and pouring lemonade into plastic cups while my friend carried my two-year-old, Sadie, on her hip and stared at me with a worried look on her face.

When Aubrey and Emma started wrestling in the dirt over a frog… (yeah, you read that correctly) my nerves had taken all they could stand and it was time to go home. All three girls were dirty and wet from playing in the sprinkler so as they climbed into the car, they dumped their muddy shoes and my five-year-old took off her sopping clothes and got into her seat in only her underwear.

It was five o’clock. My husband would be home soon but I could not bear the thought of going home until I knew he was there and I was 100 percent certain that I was going to need more than lemonade to make it through until bedtime.

This is how I found myself at the local liquor store, buying a bottle of wine while my kids waited safely in the air-conditioned car with the doors locked from the inside. (Really. They were fine and less than five feet from where I stood.) I walked in the door and stumbled, bleary-eyed to the reds and reached for a bottle. I would go home, sip a glass of wine and in a few short hours everyone in my house would sleep.

Just as my hand closed around the bottle I heard a voice, “That lemonade wasn’t strong enough?” I laughed and turned to see one of my favorite women from church standing behind me.

“No… my kids… the heat… the fighting… I can’t… It’s bad…” I mumbled incoherently. She patted me on the back and assured me that I would survive. As the mother of four she should surely know. The kind woman behind the counter took up where she left off, “You just enjoy ‘em honey. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Do you promise?” I wanted to ask.

I began walking out of the store and wondered why everyone was pausing and laughing as they passed my car. Two more steps and I saw: Emma was dancing, in my car, in her underwear in the parking lot of the liquor store. And thus ends my application for Mother of the Year. (If it helps we did raise almost 30 bucks for a local non-profit. Maybe you should go back and read that part about taking my kids to the library and my kid almost swimming the width of the pool.)

Let’s hear your Parent of The Year nominations from the summer.

Robin O’Bryant is a stay-at-home-mother to three daughters born within four years, she has recently learned where babies come from and gotten herself under control. Robin survives the drama and hilarity of motherhood by making fun of herself in her self-syndicated family humor column, Robin’s Chicks, which runs 8 newspapers in three states across the Southeast and on her blog by the same name. She writes A LOT, mostly in 140 character increments. (@robinobryant) Her two ah-mazing manuscripts are represented by Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency and are FOR SALE. CAN YOU SEE THIS PUBLISHERS??