>Dude, Where’s My Son?

In my repository of embarrassing mommy moments, yesterday will go down as a big one.

When Hubs and I showed up at Punky’s soccer game yesterday (last soccer story! I promise! They should have called this blog Soccer Mom Bores You with Soccer Stories!), Hubs pushed Bruiser to the field in his stroller while I held Punky’s hand and walked alongside them. I had been up since 4:30 in the morning with Bruiser, and while I felt okay, I was definitely not okay. Why? I’ll tell you.

Hubs (who’s coaching the team) and Punky went out on the field to play the game while I chatted with the moms on the sidelines. Several minutes passed as I exchanged pregnancy horror stories with one of the mothers, who’s due with her third child next week. “Oh yeah, Bruiser was ten pounds,” I gloated to her in the way that veteran moms are wont to do. And I had him naturally! With no problems!”

But as I continued talking, I felt a little voice nagging inside of me. Bruiser, it said. Bruiser, Bruiser, Bruiser. Wait a second. Bruiser. Bruiser? Who is this Bruiser? Why, he’s my… baby. My baby, who came to this game with us. My baby, who’s not here beside me! DUDE, WHERE’S MY SON?!

I looked around in a panic. “Where is Bruiser?” I stammered, redfaced. You can’t imagine the horror of realizing that you’ve temporarily forgotten you have a baby while surrounded by six other moms.

“He’s over there,” one of the moms said, pointing to the other end of the field and grinning wickedly. I looked over and saw the stroller still parked where Hubs had left it five minutes ago, surrounded by parents from the other team. Left defenseless with the enemy! The horror! I tried to casually race over to him (you can imagine how that looked), where he was cooing happily, having no idea that his mother had completely forgotten he existed for all of five minutes! When I returned with the stroller, I smiled weakly and shrugged at the mom on our team who’d been keeping an eye on him, waiting for me to realize he was gone.

“Extreme sleep deprivation,” I said. “I have no words.”

“I understand,” she said, in a way that made me think she didn’t understand at all. I mean, we’re all tired, I imagined her thinking to herself, but who forgets about her baby?

I do.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.