And then Mommy threw the balloon out the car window

As a parenthetical, I'm finding the points hard to track these days. If you give me a shout out and correct them, I will correct them. Relatives of Worst Mama candidates, your participation is welcome, but your scoring won't be counted. Sneaky Karen...

Yesterday, we were guilted into attending attended an engagement party for one of Alec's cousins. We like his cousins, it's really just the assorted jerks family members that also attended that are problematic. Within about 3 minutes of his stepmother and father showing up, my shoulder blades were tensed so far they were up around my ears. If it wasn't, "Well, you're NOT spending Thanksgiving with Epiphany's family, you spend Christmas with them every year!" (uh, you're Jewish..) it was perhaps "Well, the IDEA of matching dresses was cute, it's too bad you couldn't find ones that fit...or were nice-looking..." or maybe even "We have lists of dates to go over with you..." I wasn't in my best parenting form, n'est ce que pas?

I had told Lauren she couldn't go play outside because there was a pool. It was behind a locked gate, I found out later, but y'know, whatever. I'd said no. After her 3rd 8-ounce bottle of water I'd told her she'd had enough to drink before we had to get into a car to drive what turned out to be 3 hours from Orange County to Brooklyn. And although she was offered the dozen or so mylar balloons, I told her she couldn't take one with her because we were going to be in the car too long.

So you know, of course, that I found Lauren outside on the swing set with the other kids, and when I asked she stated that she knew I told her no, but she wanted to play. And I also caught her asking Alec to get her some "sparkly water". When I went to check her seatbelt in the car and found she was holding the string of one of the mylar balloons, I lost it. I yanked its string and released it out of the car.

Alec looked at me incredulously. "What the Hell?!"

Yeah, not a shining moment for me.

The second party we attended yesterday was Alec's office's annual barbecue. We always have a great time - Alec's coworkers are a great bunch. At one point, I heard Lauren recounting to Jon, "And then Mommy threw the balloon out the car window..." He laughed, and then looked up shaking his head, you know, kids say the darnedest things style.

"I threw the balloon out the car window." I said.

"Wow," he managed.