Parenting

Do all parents second-guess themselves? Or is it just me?

I started this #blogjune challenge intending to explore the journey I’m on as a mum of a newly diagnosed autistic son. But today, I spent close to an hour in the emergency waiting room of Caboolture Hospital with Miss 4. She’d been at family day care with Mr 3, playing on one of their scooters, had fallen off and sliced open a deep gash just below her mouth. So she and I spent time at the hospital, while Mr 3 played back at Day Care, and my work continued to pile up back at St Paul’s, where I had decided to have a rare, kid-free day, to catch up on the mountain of work not yet completed.
And that’s when I started thinking about the whole ‘mother guilt’ thing again.

Miss 4 is with me 7 days a week, with the exception of ‘grandma playgroup’ when she’s not allowed to come to Mr 3’s ECDP. It’s very very very rare for me to organize a day of childcare for her (and Mr 3) because not only is it rather expensive, but also because Mr 3, being autistic, doesn’t like changes to his routine.
So when I do, and she gets hurt, I wonder ‘would that have happened if she had been with me?’ (No, because I don’t like scooters because they’re dangerous, so we don’t have any here at home… but that’s not to say that she could have hurt herself some other way…) I wonder ‘should I have put her in care today, or just kept her with me… seeing as I didn’t get the work done that I wanted to, anyway’. I wonder ‘what sort of mother puts her child in care when, really, she doesn’t absolutely *have* to?’ I wonder ‘this is the second time in the space of a few months that Miss 4 has ended up in Emergency… is this coincidence, or an indicator of something deeper, that I should be aware of but am not due to my busyness?’ I wonder how I’m going to catch up on the work I’m missing out on doing. I wonder if by some strange turn of events, @fionawb might just so happen to wander down to Emergency, and we might meet IRL. I wonder why the Caboolture Emergency is so drastically different to Nambour Emergency; where we were late last year… or Caloundra Emergency; where I’ve been with Miss 7… and Mr 3. I wonder if other mums visit Emergencies as much as I seem to; or if my kids are just clumsier than average; or if I’m one of those hypochondriac mothers who’s always imagining medical conditions on her kids.
And (as an aside) I wonder where the St Paul’s ad is, that we’ve been paying for for over a year now, that is meant to be playing in the Caboolture Hospital Emergency waiting room…)

Anyway… that was my afternoon. I want to thank my online friends for their messages and tweets wishing Miss 4 well. Your support means so much to me!!! It’s unexpected, and therefore all the more treasured. Thanks for being there for me! You guys rock!!!
So now, it’s late, and my inbox is still beckoning. I love my work… but can see that the day is coming where I’m going to need some staff…