Mommy jail. That's where you go when you do bad things as a mommy.

My first mommy jail incident was when Keira was a little over a month old. As I've mentioned before, she is an incredibly easy-going infant. In fact, even now, she still sleeps twenty-some hours a day. So when we first brought her home, we sometimes found ourselves waking her up just to get her fed. One hot afternoon, Keira was sleeping sweetly, wearing just a diaper and sprawled out on her back in the middle of our bed. Felix suggested I rouse her for a feeding. God only knows what I was thinking, but I went to the kitchen tap, ran my hands under the cold water, and strolled over to Keira to let a couple drops of water fall on her chest.

What a mistake! Keira awoke with a start, red-faced and crying. I felt absolutely wretched and scooped her into my arms for a cuddle. The worst was trying to explain my idiocy to Felix when he came running over to find out what had happened. For some nutty reason, I really thought Keira would just wake up and open her eyes; OBVIOUSLY not. I was clearly guilty - the event had been planned and executed with deliberation. First degree conviction for sure.

The next two incidents were thankfully more of the second/third degree type. A couple weeks after the wake-up disaster, Felix and I took the baby out for a walk in her fancy stroller. Normally, Keira rides in her car seat carrier because it's light, quick, and easy to take in and out of the car. When we're going to and from the house, however, we usually put her in her big stroller. That way, she can lie down and take a nap, or sit up and look around.

Keira being Keira, she was still sleeping when we rolled back up the house. Now our stroller has this really cool feature that allows you to flip the push-handle from back to front; in other words, you can push the stroller with the baby facing you, OR you can flip the handle and push the stroller with the baby facing out. I needed to flip the handle to pick Keira up, and as I was moving the handle to the other side, Keira startled awake with a loud cry. We hadn't noticed that her arm had flopped out the side of the stroller, which was then pinched by the handle as I tried to flip it over. Red-faced and hollering again, Keira was scooped up by yours truly for yet another I'm-SO-sorry-let-me-cuddle-you session. Argh.

I have to say, though, that my crowning moment was definitely this week. I take Keira with me when I drop by the office, which is really easy to do because she's so well-behaved. She had just woken up for a nap, and I decided to change her diaper. Our diaper bag has this convenient changing pad that you can unzip and fold out from the side of the bag. I laid her down, pulled out a fresh diaper, and prepared a couple of wipes - all very routine by now. I wasn't prepared for a Code Brown, however. Cutie-pie Keira had made a big smelly poopie. Yuck. She started to squirm, so I held her feet up a little higher to wipe her little bottom. That's when things went crazy.

Keira straightened out her legs against my firmer grip, causing her to push backwards along the smooth surface of the changing pad. No big deal, right? Wrong. Her head slid to the side, running along the edge of the unzipped zipper. We went directly from normal everyday diaper change to screaming red-faced disaster. As I pulled on Keira's legs to get her poor head away from that awful zipper, she also decided that it was the perfect moment to pee, catching me completely by surprise. Pee went everywhere - all over my hands, all over her legs and tummy, and all over the changing pad. Not sure what to do, I pulled her feet up higher again to get her away from the mess. Another mistake! The puddles on the water-resistant pad flowed right under Keira's back, and in an instant, her clothes were soaked.

What to do, what to do?!?!?!

Keira was hollering quite loudly now, squirming and twisting while I stood there in complete disbelief. Time to take action. I shoved the pile of ruined diapers and wipes onto my desk, crammed Keira's burp cloth under her back and bottom so she wasn't laying on her wet clothes, and pulled off her outfit as quickly as possible. After gingerly easing out a bottle of sanitizing lotion from the bag, I squeezed almost the entire thing onto my hands. I picked Keira up, dumped her on my lap, grabbed a dry diaper, and put the diaper on as well as I could. Finally, I scooped my poor sobbing sweetheart up for some cuddle time, examining her zipper-head as I rocked her in my arms. Fortunately, the red mark on her noggin just looked somewhat irritated, although it was probably a good two inches long.

While I wiped Keira's tears away, I examined the mess we had made. My normally tidy office desk (and believe me - I am VERY tidy) was littered in diapers, wipes, and crumpled clothing. Oh, and everything reeked, too. Can't leave out the fragrant smells. Eventually, Keira fell asleep, and I cleaned up the scene of the crime. By the time Felix came home that evening, Keira's zipper-head had faded to pale pink, but my guilt was still burning strong.

Intellectually, I understand that parenting is full of mishaps and errors, blunders and accidents. But deep down, I can't help but wring my hands and fret over the possibilities. Mommy jail, man. Mommy jail.