Being a mom sometimes makes me feel like I'm the funnel cloud of a tornado, whipping around so many different things in the air that if I dare slow down, I'll drop them and smash them all to pieces. I live with that vague feeling that I'm one silly mistake away from being that "bad mom" on the news. That's what happened to Iesha Hill when she dosed her infant daughter's bottle with rum.
The California mom got up in the middle of the night to make her 5-month-old daughter a bottle. Only cops say that instead of grabbing the bottle of water off her counter, she grabbed a similar looking bottle filled with rum. When she rushed her baby girl to the hospital for treatment, Hill ended up being arrested.
Prosecutors have now dropped their child endangerment claims against her after Hill convinced them the rum and formula mixture was an honest mistake.
An honest mistake. How many times have we made one of those, and then held our breath, praying that things turn out OK. I'd venture to say this is the scariest part of parenting. Honest mistakes happen because we are human, but the fact is, they affect human life. Rum in the formula bottle is not putting the wrong paper in the office copy machine. It's life and death stuff.
And yet, as mothers, the obstacles we face are huge. You could say, OMG, I would NEVER put rum in my baby's bottle. But what have you done late at night when the baby is crying and you're exhausted?
I remember once having to pee so bad I could taste it (yeah, it WAS that bad) in the middle of the night. I leaned over and shook my husband awake so he could watch our infant daughter in the bed. He assured me he was up to the task, and I rushed downstairs, did the deed, and came back up ... only to find him snoring and our daughter -- fortunately -- lying in the middle of our bed staring at the ceiling. He didn't do it on purpose. He was tired!! And yet, I don't have to paint all the bad scenarios that COULD have come of it.
Of course after that happened, I made a pact with myself that I would hold it if it KILLED me. And I can tell you that as long as my daughter was awake in the middle of the night and not in a crib or bassinet, I held to it.
That's what good moms do to make up for our mistakes or "quasi-mistakes." We fix them as best we can so they don't happen again. Iesha Hill says she's going to give up drinking because she doesn't want to run the risk of another "honest mistake."
What life change have you made after making one of those mom mistakes?
Image via Nerissa's Ring/Flickr
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Comments 42
Who puts rum in a water bottle unless they are trying to hide it and/or drink it somewhere you aren't supposed to?
I was curious if there was another article and I guess the grandmother made the bottle and they couldn't understand why the baby wasn't drinking it. It was until 8 HOURS later they noticed the baby acting weird and checked her bottle!
Not long ago, my 4 year old somehow had a purple marker slide down into her shorts while riding in her carseat. The cap was off, so it left a large purple stain on her undies. When she was undressing that night, we realized that the marker had seeped through to her skin, and she had what looked like a huge purple bruise in between her legs. It was horrible looking, and I couldn't really scrub it with anything because of the location (ouch!). We were sure someone at preschool was going to notice and call CPS on us claiming sex abuse! We kept the purple-stained undies out of the wash for a few days as proof of our crazy story!
Maybe she has a lack of smell? There are times when my nose is soo stuffy from allergies and sinus's that I cant smell rotten milk if its held under my nose. On a good day I have normal smell issues, the dr said that my chronic allergies have damanged my sense of smell. It could be as simple as something like that. and Light rum does look just like water. And there are plenty of times I have had mine in a water bottle. My friend and I split a gallon jug of it and mine normally just goes in a normal bottle.
I don't really understand why some of you don't "buy" this story. Say the mother had purposefully given her daughter a bottle of rum, the type of person that does that would not then take their child to the emergency room.....Poor woman, I feel for her. Hope everything works out for them! Also, some people don't have the best sense of smell.
Like everyone else I get mistakes but this was a big one! She's lucky she caught the mistake. I have 4 kids and have never had this happen and I have a 5wk old right now and am sleep deprived but still know the difference between alcohol and water! Why'd she have the bottle out anyway.. when you have kids alcohol should be locked up not laying around by the water bottes! My husband and I drink but we don't leave our bottles where the kids can get them.