"Things have changed." - Ava

Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones leaving my body. Or maybe it's just what happens when you add another child to your family. But when you forget to find your oldest child during a game of hide-and-seek, you feel BAD. I mean really bad - like tears spring up in your eyes as you look at your first born who asks you "mommy why didn't you come find me? Aren't we still playing?" The child I always had time for and I forgot we were playing a game. How does that happen? I was counting to 30 and in a few minutes, I just totally forgot. Where is my brain? 

Things have changed for sure. And while most of it is wonderful it is also much more tricky. Dinner time on is tricky as I have a child stuck on my boob, another one who needs to eat, I would like to eat, our dog wants to eat, then there's bath time, reading, etc. And Ava wants me to scratch her head in bed AND read the book but Jackson is crying. Hmmm, tricky. 

I know Ava was okay that I didn't come find her right away during our game. But I was not okay. So what do I do to make it up to her to show her I haven't forgotten her? I enroll her in swim lessons. How fun. Something else to get out the door for with a baby on my boob. And be on time. And I hope I don't forget. I already put it in my calender with an hour reminder time but who knows? Maybe once I hit snooze on the reminder, I'll forget. Because this also just happened. Ava had a daisy troop outing and my phone's alarm went off. So I hit dismiss and I proceeded to get her permission slip and made the loud announcement in the house "Don't forget - you have daisies in an hour!" And then I forgot. No one took her. And at at six o'clock I yelled out, "we forgot your daisy meeting!" How did I forget in an hour? There's got to be an oil for that :) 

So in a nutshell, I'm still trying, and trying to do better. And I know our children are loved and feel loved. I really do know this. But man, those little moments when you let your kids down - that hurts. And all I could think of to say was sorry - mommy's so sorry. Which I guess is good in a way - Ava will see it is good to apologize to others and to make things right. But I think that's still just me trying to make myself feel better. I won't beat myself up too much - I think this is all part of it, part of the transition to having another baby. And it really just was an accident. But that incident just keeps popping up in my mind at random moments. Dang being a parent is hard. But it's so great too. 

Happy Tuesday everyone.

-Emily