Guilt

I swore I would go to my grave with what I'm about to share. But after calling Andy at work and sitting here beating myself up over it I decided I'm human and a mistake is a mistake. I can't say I'm past the guilt because if you know me - you know the guilt will haunt me for a very long time.

I will preface this with one thing: I am sleep deprived. Ella is up every morning from approximately 3:30/4:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. grunting and groaning and straining for a bowel movement. I have no idea why she has chosen this time period to work on getting her poopy out but she has. And we are both up together working through it. The kicker is - last night she was fussy until midnight and then finally passed out. So if you do the math you'll quickly see I'm operating on very little sleep...

This morning I finally got out of bed (no, we weren't asleep we were all watching Curious George and Ella was eating) around 9:00 a.m. Lilly had gym at 10:00 a.m. That is not a lot of time to get showered, 2 kids fed and dressed, bag packed, and out the door. But we did it. I even called a friend to see if I could drop Ella off with her for the gym class since last week Ella cried for the hour unless I was holding her. *I had guilt over this too but realized Ella would never know the difference.* Gym is Lilly's time with Mommy and because my attention was on Ella and I was holding her, Lilly had a very tough time behaving in class. Totally understandable. So I dropped Ella off at 10 minutes to 10 and headed to Gymboree with Lilly. We had a nice time together and she did a great job following directions. After Gymboree we headed back to my friend's house to pick up Ella. By the time we left it was 11:30 and we needed to get lunch (we have NO groceries; shame on me). We were very close to Pizza Hut and I know they have a lunch buffet and Lilly eats free so we headed there.

We got into Pizza Hut, grabbed some food and ate lunch. Ella was sleeping in her carrier on the booth seat. Lilly decided it was a good time to take a poop so I had to change her diaper. Then she wanted a breadstick but they didn't have any. We packed up all our stuff and headed to the front to leave but first ask if they had a breadstick that we could take with us (the breadsticks were always gone when I went to check on the buffet and it's Lilly's favorite part!). As we're waiting for them to heat up a breadstick the waitress is talking to Lilly about all her pink. She kept saying "pink, pink, pink" and suddenly it hit me - I had forgotten something!!!

I said to the waitress, "Oh my gosh guess what I forgot???" and ran back to our table to retrieve sleeping Ella in her carrier.

Yes, I forgot my precious child!!!! I cannot believe I did this. I wonder if we weren't waiting for the breadstick if I would have left the restaurant. I keep replaying it over and over in my mind. I guess I'm tired, distracted, not used to having 2... I don't know what it is but I do know this - I left my poor baby at our table in Pizza Hut.

Andy was very sweet. He said, "That's what happens to all moms!" I thought he'd condemn me which is really why I think I called him - I felt I needed to get in trouble or be scolded or something! Not that he ever gets mad at me but I wanted to tell him so I could confess my horrible sin and actually say out loud what I had done.

Ok, in hindsight I realize I just left her for maybe 4 minutes and I was only about 20 feet from her. I didn't leave the restaurant. But still... the guilt is there and I will have to work to forgive myself. My sweet sweet Ella baby.