Friday, July 07, 2006

TRAGEDY

I do not pretend that I am a perfect Mom. In fact, I am quite sure that I am scarring my precious little children's psyche's on many levels. As my Analyzer friend says, "Oh yes! They will have plenty of couch time as adults."

That said...I am quite disturbed about an incident in our local news today. A woman with four children apparently dropped three older ones off at daycare and then went to her church to volunteer her time. She forgot that she had her nine month old baby still in its carseat and left the baby in the car for two hours in INTENSE heat while she volunteered. She did remember, eventually, and ran to the car to find her lifeless baby barely alive. The baby is now in serious condition at a hospital.

I wonder.....how can this happen?

We are all stressed Mother's. We have to divide our time between a gazillion activities...... especially Mom's with multiple children.

I have, on occasion, checked the back seat of our van when we are driving away from home to make sure all of the children are in the car and buckled up. I often freak out when I take the older children somewhere and have Izzy with a babysitter. I always think something is wrong. Someone is missing and it is disturbing. I don't like going places with only some of the kids because I always have this nagging fear that something is not right and out of sorts. I have literally slammed on the breaks and pulled over to the side of the road when looking in the back seat and seeing Izzy's car seat empty only to be reminded by my older children that Izzy is with his MeMa or home with Dad.

I'm sure my children whisper to one another..."if only Mom were sane."

My heart goes out to this family and all families that are so distracted....so not in the moment that tragedies like this occur.

All you Mom's out there, take some extra time today. Slow down. Be in the moment and remember that you are not only a Wife, Volunteer, Cook, Maid, Seamstress, Friend, Driver, Shopper, or even Bread Winner to your family. You are first and foremost, a Mom.

Give your children the gift of presence.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just heard another one like that where the mom went to pick the baby up at daycare only to learn she had never dropped it off, it was STILL in the backseat. I could never imagine the pain of this type of experience.

RockerMom said...

I have an only child so I have a definite advantage in that arena. However I have had moments when I'm like, "Where's The Boy?" and I have to stop and remember he's at grandma's or whatever. I hope and pray that little baby is okay. There's a story like that every summer it seems.