OY, THE GUILT! | Imamother

amother

Thu, Sep 04 2014, 11:28 pm

So this is basically the most guilt-inducing thing that's ever happened to me as a parent...

I was frantically trying to get ready for work and my 5 year old DD said “Mommy, can I have a little sticky paper to write on?”

I was already frustrated with everything that morning and I got annoyed and said “DD, you always use up all my paper for silly scribbles. Every time I need paper, I don’t have any because you’ve used it all up. You can have ONE piece and that’s it, OK? Just ONE!” and she said “ok. that’s enough”.

Within a few minutes, I left for work. I pulled up in my parking spot and opened my knapsack to toss my car keys in, and spotted the little piece of paper in my bad. In her handwriting it read: “Dear Mommy, I love you. Love, DD”.

When I picked her up after work that day, I told her that she had "filled my bucket with that note more than anything else in the whole world" (the 'bucket' thing is part of her school's curriculum. They describe kind acts as "filling someone's invisible emotional bucket" and unkind acts as "emptying someone's invisible emotional bucket"). I hugged and kissed her and told her that the note made me happy the entire day. She seems quite pleased.

But OMG...I'm seriously never going to forgive myself for that one!

Dolly1

Fri, Sep 05 2014, 2:42 am

Reading ur post just made me cry...
Dont bash urself for that one. We are all only human, and make mistakes. The main thing is to learn from our mistakes. If that one mistake will turn u into an even better mom, then it was totally worth it!
Btw, ur dd is precious!!! Very Happy

myself

Fri, Sep 05 2014, 5:27 am

I'm glad your response didn't make her change her mind about leaving the note. That's so adorable. May she bring you much nachas. Don't beat yourself up about it though. Hopefully this incident will act as a motivator to keep you from getting impatient in the future but you're human and we all get impatient sometimes.

mandksima

Sun, Sep 07 2014, 9:01 am

I don't think you said anything wrong. She should understand that it is wrong to waste paper and you told her how much you enjoyed her note. I think parents forget that it is okay to tell a child about limits. Don't feel badly at all.