Bad Mommy

Being a mom is not easy and often we do things without even knowing that hurt our children.  I hate when this happens, as I know it happens to parents all over the place. Luckily, I haven't done anything damaging to Tia, but whenever little things do happen, I just beat myself up over it.  Yesterday morning when I was changing her, I noticed a big burn mark on her shoulder blade. Instantly, we thought of daycare. What happened?  Was there no incident report?  I took her to daycare that morning and inquired about it to them and they had no idea.  When I showed them them the mark, I noticed an identical one on the other shoulder blade. It looked like rug burn and then it hit me. I did that!  I put a 12 month onzie on her and it must have rubbed all day long to cause that. My poor child.  I know she is growing like a weed, but she has long legs and short torso (like me) and I figured her shirts/onzies still fit her just fine. Boy was I wrong. I am sure many of you have done similar things without even knowing.  I remember when I first had Tia. She was a couple months old and I was on maternity leave. I put her on the couch leaning up against a pillow.  I had done this almost every day and she never moved an inch.  I had one arm on her leg and I leaned down to grab a diaper. It was just out of my reach and I leaned an inch or two further. I got the diaper in hand, but when I turned to see Tia she was in mid air, doing a somersault onto the floor. Luckily for me, it was the perfect roll. She rolled into it and did take any force to her body.  She just landed, looked up at me with bright eyes and wailed out a bit. I scooped her up and held her tightly. She instantly stopped crying. I really don't think it hurt her, but more scared her. In fact, it hurt me so much that I went and rocked her for hours upon hours that day and just cried to myself saying what a horrible mom I am.  I knew that moment that there were going to be many instances in Tia's life where I do things that may hurt or scare her without even realizing I'm doing it.  Parenting is not an easy task and I know it takes work and diligence to stay on task. I know Chris has the same issues when he raises his voice some times. Tia instantly gets her feelings hurt. I know it just kills him to see his baby sticking that lower lip out that starts to quiver then all of a sudden, she looks down, puts her hands over her eyes, and starts to cry. Oh it is sooooo precious.  And it melts your heart instantly.  As the sermon series at Church right now says, love hurts, and sometimes we do hurt the ones we love. Sometimes we have to in order to teach them and lead them in the right direction.  I know when Chris raises his voice, he is being a good parent to show her that she can't do things wrong and I know when he sees the tears, it hurts him, but he knows he is just doing what a parent should.  I know lots of parents want to be friends with their kids and I believe there must be respect first as a parent, then friendship can only be allowed after that respect is established. I think some people have this harder than others. I can actually think of a particular mom and child combo off the top of my head and the mom never disciplined and just thought by giving the child everything they wanted, they would be happy and grow up great....but it took many years later for the mom to realize that she created a monster and it has taken the child that much longer to integrate into adulthood. I know there is no RIGHT method to being a parent, but I hope Chris and I can bring a good level of parenting to our family so they grow up respecting us as parents and one day as they grow into adults become our friends too. Guess we'll see!