10/26/2026
Worst Mom Alert!
If you've had one of those parenting moments where you look at your actions and think, "wow, worst mom ever" then pull up a chair. You're in good company.
Two Saturday mornings ago I woke up around 4am from stomach pains. I will spare you the details of what the next 48 hours of my life were like. That Sunday morning around 1am, my 6 year old came to my bedside and spoke those dreaded words, "Mama, I threw up." Amidst my own issues, and after getting her settled in my bed, POV (as the cool kids say) I am stripping her bed and accounting for damages. Oh no..she's really taken out her cow. Her cow? you ask. Yes, each of my kids own a Warmie cow - one that you warm up every night in the microwave and snuggle to sleep. Every night we have "cow time" where the cows are tossed downstairs and then my 3 year old does "cow delivery". These cows are beloved. So when I saw the upchuck damage, in my stupor I immediately tossed it in the wash. Warmies are filled with flaxseeds and so you can imagine how successful that wash was. Not to worry, still on Sunday I found out that Ace Hardware (shout out to Ace - this post is NOT sponsored 🤪) carries these cows in the store. What a privilege to be able to buy an item in store and not wait on Amazon Prime. My husband runs to pick it up, I toss the severely destroyed old cow in the trash and...oh what's that?...yes, I forget to cover the trash. So when my husband returns home he finds my 6 year old, standing at the trash, staring at "Rosie".
In that moment, I tried to pull off what I thought was the ultimate save. I looked my devastated daughter in the eyes and I told her not to worry: I had already successfully scooped up Rosie's soul with all her memories and bedtime snuggles and transferred it right into this new cow. Rosie 2.0! Yes. I actually said this.
As you can imagine, especially if you already know my 6 year old, she didn't believe me, not 1 single bit. I sat with her through her tears, as she rejected the new cow for multiple days and stood her ground in genuine toy grief. Worst. Mom. Ever.
As I stood in this wave of Worst Mom Ever, I read something that changed me. Our kids don't need us to be literal magic/never make mistakes, they just need us to stay. *tears* They need us to sit in the mess with them and say, "I'm so sorry, I messed up," and to hold space for their big feelings. There's a lot of big feelings happening these days. Maybe those feelings are about a ruined stuffed cow, or maybe they are about something much more serious. As mamas we may occasionally stumble, sometimes overcomplicate things by talking about stuffed cow souls, and feel like failures. But life keeps moving so then we wake up and try again. Last night, my daughter finally succumbed to my cow soul story and we are safe to begin referring to her as Rosie once again.
If you've messed up, try again with me?
In resiliency with you,
BBM Love.
Alyse Sykes
