Technology failed me, again! The multi-layered, color-coded and sound-enriched alert system I set up sent me something this morning - "I am so sorry you missed Day Out with Thomas Train 16 hours ago!"
Did I tell you, my boy named Victor may as well be addressed "Train" and without a heartbeat he grasps a toy train instead of his mother's attempted hugs.
No, technology didn't fail me, it's parenting that fell into a crack. I would like to think my memory lapse in attentiveness didn't cause my child to hurt, or an emotional need unmet - "He doesn't know it." "I took him there last year when Thomas was in town." Rationalizations and denial then cloak in after self-focused guilt for my humanly limited abilities to care and respond. Before all of them become harder to bear, I sat myself in the sunshine wishing the chanting to plague my mind "Parenting is an ever-evolving work in progress." While I listened to myself empathically, sense of renewal suggested self-understanding of unsystematic parenting coping, and possible growth in more complex alert setting in my Iphone, and Ipad, and my laptop, even willingness to be paper converted.
It's the Mother's Day week. I remember the words of a card I collected long ago.
"How do you learn to be a mom?" asked Pooh.
"You just follow your heart, " answered Kanga.
I guess it won't be that hard for me after all.
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