Absentee Mom

You know how sometimes you have a headache and you're too hot and your stomach is achy but you still have to take care of your kids but maybe you don't do it so well as normal? You know those times??

I was having that sort of time yesterday. (I think I'm getting a cold). And, Devin is pooping a lot. I'm trying to give the kids more fruit and it's making Devin's bowel overly active. (He won't forgive me for that later, I bet.) Add general exhaustion and poopy diaper exhaustion and you have absentee mom syndrome.

I was changing his diaper upstairs. He was on his changing table. I changed him and we talked. We always talk when I change him. I thought about taking some excedrin for my headache. I thought about going outside to play. I thought about the fact that all his pooping his making is hiney sore.

I lost a few minutes after that. I went downstairs with the poopy diaper in hand. Threw it in the garbage. Did a few other random things, then hollered for Devin to come downstairs so we could go outside. It was then that I started thinking about our diaper changing episode. I did not have a clear recollection of getting him down from the changing table. Surely, I thought to myself, I got him down. I just don't remember it. I changed my phrasing on my next request for Devin to come downstairs.

"Devin, Can you come downstairs, now?"

His answer, "No, I'm too high. Can you come get me?"

Ah, so it wasn't short term memory loss. It was an actual lapse due to absentee mom syndrome. On his changing table, he sat cross legged looking rather pensive.

I got him down, and apologized. I praised him for not attempting to get down himself.

Today, I said, "Remember when I forgot you on the changing table. Wasn't that funny?"

"No," he said. "That was bad."