Love, bubs and life on our little farm

I am not normally too hard on myself - oh I feel plenty of Mummy guilt but I tend to push it away a fair bit cause I am more realistic than that. As long as you try and keep trying and love your child and show them that, then well.. really you are an OK Mummy in my books.

So yeah - I am well aware that my toddler ate hot chips for dinner last night and for lunch today (my Mummy guilt wants to point out that she also ate steamed corn on the cob and other vegies lol). But really in the bigger scheme I am just happy she ate something.

But today I had a spectacular fail.

We were playing at the beach with some friends and their kids. I wandered into the water where Jase and Elka were splashing around. Elka always tends to cling to me so despite me saying to Jase that I had just realised I was still wearing my non-waterproof watch, I somehow ended up holding her hands and playing with her whilst Jase enjoyed bobbing in the water. Now normally he would "tag" me by saying something like "you mind her while I have a swim"... but we didn't really say anything. Elka was running around in the shallows beside us both when I noticed a man lingering far up the beach at our stuff - which included my full handbag and all of our keys, wallets and phones. Jase must have noticed him too as he commented and I said "I'll go back up there and make sure everything is OK". And I start walking out of the water - in that instant I was truly distracted and was not watching Elka or making sure that Jase had fully taken over from me. I had my back to Elka. I turned and looked back to see that Elka had fallen forwards in the water and it was too deep for her to push herself back up onto her feet as she still uses her hands. So my little bub was desperately trying to keep her head above water.

Worst. Image. Ever.

Of course Jase was over to her in an instant - it was all a matter of seconds. She didn't even get her mouth wet or cough or splutter - she did such a good job at keeping her head up. But it did scare her and she needed Mummy hugs for a few minutes.

And it sure scared me -big time. Everyone says how fast these things can happen but wow once you experience it, you really really understand.

But it was a good wake up call - we play at the beach alot and we probably are too blase with Elka's abilities. I am so proud of her being able to keep herself safe in that instant - but she should never have had to. Its certainly made Jase and I discuss our communication strategies for when we are both caring for her (and hence both think the other one is the responsible one at the time!)

Fortunately or maybe unfortunately, it hasnt put Elka off the water at all - 5 minutes later she was dragging me back in deeper than she could touch. Yet another reminder that she needs very careful watching.

Urrgh I am trying to learn from this. But right now I just feel dreadful.

Definitely a Bad Mummy moment for me.