This is part of an on-going series I’ll be writing to my children. See all of them here.

Describe your most embarrassing moment.

I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things, and it’s really difficult to narrow it down to just one, but they seem to center around nervousness and anxiety. And barfing.

I could talk about the time I left a puddle of pee all over the floor at my first grade ballet recital (I’m sure the parents with video cameras still get a kick out of watching that one), or the time in college that I broke part of a really expensive art exhibit at BYU.

But those aren’t the best stories. I don’t want to talk about barf, but I’m going to anyway. Your Grammy Tammy is a saint; I was nervous a lot as a child and she always had to clean it up over and over again. Once I threw up in a peanut dish at the Disneyland Hotel lobby in a fancy dress. My mom barely had time to dump the peanuts everywhere to catch my puke. And once I threw up overnight in a tent full of sisters and cousins and lied that a “strange man” came in the middle of the night and did it. I once barfed into the sweatshirt on my lap in the back seat of a van on a girl scout trip and tried to hide it from everyone. I have thrown up twice more at Disneyland – once while waiting in line at the Indiana Jones ride, and once while on Pirates of the Caribbean. There are dozens more I can think of but I’ll spare you the details. Just know I can’t be trusted with high-anxiety situations. ;)

Long story short, usually my most embarrassing moments happened when I was nervous. And it would seem that my bodily fluids didn’t quite cooperate. The problem was that I was too shy to tell anyone about it before it was too late! (Lesson learned, my darling children? Give me adequate notice before you barf, okay?)