It was bound to happen...

...forgetting my child somewhere that is. Luckily for them (and me) it was at home and for a VERY short amount of time. I remember I use to tease a friend of mine about the time his mom (of 3) left him at a park. Mostly I did it because one could tell years later he was still emotionally scarred by it and how else are our friends to know we really love them but to continue to remind them of childhood traumas. But truthfully I'm not that cruel and neither was his mother whom made a very honest mistake much like I recently did.

As a rule we trust the eldest to watch the younger children now, except for the baby that always comes with me unless my mother is over with the kids. The second eldest is allowed to watch himself or the younger ones for extremely short periods of time. This morning particular my mom had come to watch the kids since we had Dave's Aunt's funeral this morning which had left my mind even more scattered than usual. At a very young age she lost her battle with cancer so it was more heartbreaking than the average funeral.

Once returning home hubby left for work and my mom and I hung out with the kids for a while. She offered to go pick up Kain for me which would give me enough time to get Aubriel ready before I had to run out with her. My mom was expected back before I had to leave so I thought nothing of it when I told Gage he could ride along with her... however that somehow in less than 20 minutes slipped my mind as I grabbed the girls and snuck out of the house while Brode and Ozzye were distracted in the basement (me assuming Gage was distracted with them). I knew my mom would be along shortly (as she usually runs late) and Gage was perfectly capable of handling things for another 10 minutes... or he would've been, had he been there. I waved to my mom just as she entered our subdivision and our vehicles passed one another still not noticing until I was miles down the road that I also waved to the child I thought was home babysitting. Then the horror set in. Luckily by this point I of course knew they were well cared for but it still didn't rid me of that over whelming "bad mom" feeling. I called immediately so that my mom would not think I was nearly as negligent as I made myself out to be but then again I DID leave my 3 and 6 y/o home by themselves even if it did only end up being for 5 minutes.

At least I know that there are others out there with good, but scatter-brained mothers that still end up raising perfectly healthy, safe children, without too much emotional trauma... or at least that could be the case if their friends can keep from tormenting them with it.