Have you ever felt guilty towards your son or daughter? So guilty you could burst into tears? That you wish you could turn everything back? Feeling guilty makes perfect sense to me every now and then, but now that it happened to me it almost broke my mother's heart.
Little things always happen. Small mistakes that you accidentally made, but that make you feel incredibly guilty. For example, that time when you had your little one on your arm and you turned too fast causing the little one to hit his head against the door frame, or that time you accidentally bought the wrong formula and you didn't understand why your little one was making such a fuss and persisted. So things like that.
Recently our Puli was sick, but we didn't realize that at all. She was a bit squeaky, but that can sometimes happen so we ignored that. Just hop to the nursery and then just eat at the table, in the bath and to bed. Meanwhile, she just wanted to hang out and was getting a little annoying to say the least. Come on, stop now! You don't have a fever and you eat and drink well so it will be toddler puberty. Hey, we're not falling for that! Off to bed!
When she lay in bed for half an hour, she was grumbling and doing something, but soon she was under sail. At night we heard her again, but even then she soon stopped grumbling so we didn't go and look. And how I regretted it the next morning! In the morning I walked into her room and what did I see? A Lulu who looked at me with a big smile. Great, of course, hadn't she been covered in spit from head to toe. Her hair, cheeks, nose, hands, everything was covered in dried red gunk. And also her mattress, sleeping bag, blanket and the bars of the cot.
With tears in my eyes I picked her up and hugged her completely flat. Of course she didn't understand it and thought it was just great. How my heart ached! Stupid right? Apparently she didn't think it was a big deal, but the world ended for me. What a bad mother I was and how guilty I felt.
I quickly undressed her, bathed her, installed her on the couch and cleaned up everything. That day I did not leave her side much to her irritation, hihi. And the three nights after the spitting incident? Let me just say that I was more in her room than in mine. Every tiny sound seemed to me like a child spitting and Madam took advantage of that. Feeling guilty is good for something. The result was of course a happy toddler who had energy for ten and a mom with the biggest bags under the eyes ever 😉 .
