Best Mom Tip #40: Keep your head up

Motherhood is far more embarrassing that I thought it would be. My kids do gross things in public, say inappropriate things to strangers, and sometimes repeat things I'd rather they didn't. But I also embarrass myself without their help at all.

Recently, my 6-month-old son had an ear infection that wouldn't go away. All moms know how to treat this ailment: start with Amoxicillin for 10 days--if that doesn't work follow with Augmentin for 10 days--then Omnicef, then scary shots, etc. The Amoxicillin didn't work so I had to go back to the pharmacy to get a prescription for Augmentin. I got it filled at about 10 in the morning, but Baby Boy wasn't due for another dose until just before bed time. When it came time to give him the meds, my husband said, "this bottle says Amoxicillin on it."

Frustrated and angry, I drove back to the pharmacy to point out the mistake and defend my precious baby who was this close to taking the same ineffectual medicine for another week. When I got there, the same pharmacist was still on duty, in what must have been the longest pharm shift on earth. To his credit, our pharmacist didn't act as though I was crazy at all when he pointed out that the bottle said Amoxicillin PLUS Clavulanate, which are actually the ingredients in Augmentin. The bottle didn't say Augmentin because most pharmacies only provide the generic version, which is what my pharmacist had done.

He also didn't act as though I insulted his intelligence by returning to the pharmacy to make him fix his egregious error. I suppose I could have called. Or looked it up on the internet. Or asked him when I got the medicine the first time. I made the situation worse by saying that my daughter took the brand name when she was a baby. He, of course, had actual medical records at his fingertips and ran down the 5 or 6 times I gave the GENERIC version of Augmentin to my daugther over the past 4 years. I thanked him for his help and went home.

It's difficult to embarrass oneself in front of a man who already knows what birth control you use, that you've needed hemmoroidal ointment, and that you've used a topical cream to help restore balance to your girly parts after childbirth. But I managed.