Bad Mommy

There are some times when I just feel like a bad mommy.  Last night was one of those times.

Around 7:30pm last night, Nicole asked for some rice (she refused rice three hours earlier when we were all eating dinner together and she had not yet eaten dinner).  So, I made her up some rice while she sang the rice song "Rice, Rice, I want Rice."

Then, when I went to put her in her highchair, she wouldn't put her feet into the holes and began crying.  She does this a lot, so I did what I always do, I made her sit and put her feet in.  She began crying uncontrollably, and said, "All done!" which is her signal for me to take her out of the high chair.  I thought she was just being difficult, so I tried to entice her to eat her rice to no avail.  Just more crying.

So, I take her out of the highchair and bring her up to my bed for snuggles and cartoons, but she won't stop crying and I don't know what is wrong.  So, I think that maybe she is tired.  I ask her if she wants to go "night night" (which is our signal for bed time).  She said, "okay" (which is what she always says when we've figured out what she wants).

So, I put her in bed, but she is still crying.  I give her kisses and shut the door.  She cries for ten minutes (unlike her at bed time), so I go back in and get her out of bed, but she is still crying.  I bring her back to my bed and snuggle with her, hoping that she will settle down.  She falls asleep next to me.

Matt calls a few minutes later on his way home from school and I tell him this whole story.  He says to check her for bites or hair tourniquets or injuries.  So, I pull off her socks and sure enough, she has cracked one of her toe nails and part of it is falling off (below the quick).

Now I feel like a bad mommy.  I must have done it when I made her sit in her highchair and didn't realize it.  She didn't know how to tell me that she was hurt other than to cry and I didn't know what the crying meant.  So, because I'm pregnant and emotional, now I start crying because I feel like a bad mommy.

I would like to hope that this will get easier as the Nicole's communication skills increase.