bad mom. bad mom.

My little Ella with the gate in question.

Ella's layers of fashion.

Yes. Its true. I am a bad mom. sigh.

This is the story of how I let my little one's hair catch on fire by a candle:

We were living in Virginia Beach in a little tiny house - something like 960 square feet. Ya know the size of most gamerooms around here.

Sometimes I think of it quite fondly though - it had all tile, and a big yard and a mature tree that we had a little sandbox under. We found snakes in the yard a couple of times (that was fun) and Zeke lazed in the sun. I had a little garden that was so cute but failed miserably - because I did not know about Square foot gardening.

Anywho, one day my good friend from high school was coming to visit our little home and I wanted it to look half way decent, so I spent a couple hours cleaning everything, then I lit a candle on the table, SHUT THE BABY GATE TO THE KITCHEN.

And went to go fold ONE load of clothes on my bed.

Little Ben and Ella were watching Cyberchase.

On the next to last towel to fold I heard shrieks and Ben met me running saying very non chalant "Ella is on fire mommy"

I got there to see flames dancing on the bottom tendrils of her curls on one side of her face. I swooped her up and batting her head ran straight toward the bathroom jumped in the shower and turned it on both of us even though the fire was already out.

I still called 911 sopping wet, even though all was well, I was entering post traumatic blob status at this point.

She had a little tiny burn the size of a pencil eraser on the top of her ear. They still made me sign papers refusing treatment before they left. That made me feel like sh%^&*.

Turns out - this is what went down:

1. I left to go fold clothes.

2. Benjamin and Ella pushed over the ottoman to scale the gate.

3. Benjamin climbed up the computer desk in the kitchen to get the playdough.

4. Ella starts playing with playdough and leans forward dipping the side of her hair RIGHT into the candle.

moral of the story is: don't do laundry.

Just kidding - I rarely have candles burning these days- and when I do - they get blown out if I leave the room.

ps. years after the terrifying incident you will feel like a bad mom all over again in front of all the parents in your kids class.

Ella's class shared their autobiographies at Barnes and Noble in May.