Benefit of the Doubt

Why, even if there has to be consequences, you should always give your child the benefit of the doubt:

So I had told Abby before she had gotten in trouble Tuesday that we were going to take pictures of the new baby and her so that he knew when he grew up that she loved him even before he was born. She was so distraught by the bugs at the place we were taking pictures (beautifully done by Sarah see here) that I packed Jack and she off early with Gramma. Hence the BIG trouble.

Anyway nothing more has been said about it. I haven't harped on about how disappointed I was (I wasn't, Sarah still got a very cute meaningful shot of both the kids with me) or how she did poorly (I wasn't thrilled about the bugs either, and I have to take 99.9% of the credit for her reaction to bugs as I surely modeled it for her constantly).

Then last night as she is going to sleep she says, "Momma I have to tell you something. I'm very full of worry about something. How will the grown up baby know I love him?" (this took me a second and I kept asking for clarification) "Because of the bugs, because I couldn't handle the bugs, the new baby won't know I loved him."

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, mom's heart broken in two. So, I promised we would take more pictures this weekend.

And though of course I think of Abby (and Jack and yet-to-be-named-baby) as the best of all worlds of all children and people ever... I don't think this is particular to them. I just think we parents are a lot harder on our kids than we are on ourselves.