Some serious Mommy guilt

I had some serious Mommy guilt this evening. As our home visitor was leaving, Natalie fell and bumped her head on the hard kitchen floor before I could grab her. This brought up the subject of Natalie falling off the bed yesterday. Deep down, I knew yesterday that I couldn't trust her on the bed for the amount of time it took me to get something out of a drawer, but its hard to fully accept that she is now entering an age where everything we will do will be so much slower because she can't be trusted to sit still for even a second. I was very lucky that she fell off backwards on to her butt then banged her head. She could have been seriously hurt. I felt bad about it, but also a little annoyed because I tell her so many times a day that she can't hang over the edge of the furniture or sit that close to the edge. This is one concept I will never regret her learning and I can't wait for her to get.

But other than this, we have had several things go wrong of the last few days:

• I tried to give her some rice cereal out of a box that had been open for a while and mixed it with water (because bothering to pump for 2 oz is just not worth it anymore). Well, something about it made her gag. And she gagged so bad that she actually threw up. Not just spit up where a small amount of colored spit comes out. But a pouring of liquidy rice cereal out of her mouth in two big bursts. I couldn't help but feel guilty that me giving her that cereal versus something else caused the vomiting.
  
• Today at her play date, I tried to pull the straps for their high chair out from under her bum, and I made a huge scratch on her thigh and she cried.
  
• The plastic swallowing thermometer case incident of yesterday.
• The other night after her shots, I feel like it took me way longer than it should have for me to figure out that her leg was bothering her.
• She has a random bruise on the back of her leg. Mike thinks it might be from plopping down hard on her butt with a toy in the way.
  
• She has a big scratch down the side of her nose that I'm not sure where it came from. A finger nail? A paper cut from a magazine? Something else?
  

I was also talking to Mike today about how I don't feel like Natalie is behind on anything, but I feel like I could be spending my time with her better and I know she would be moving along continuing at a good pace. For example, I feel like I could interact with her more during the day or that we could play more games. Every once and while, I will read about something we can play together (like me helping her kick a ball, or me hiding a toy for her to find, or just more constructive ways of talking). I feel like some days, I do a lot of talking about her around her, but not talking to her. I vow to make a better effort, but its hard to continuously be engaged in play with her (as well as feeding her, cleaning her, and taking her where we need to go) with only two breaks during her naps, both of which I usual have to do things during. I just feel like sometimes while she is playing I need to check out and do my own thing. But, now that she is getting more confident in her movement and more curious and adventurous, I just can't do something else for a few minutes or she can get into trouble. Mike said that I knew this was coming, which I guess is true, but its just like everything with a baby, that you know from reading about it what it is supposed to be like, but you really don't know until you experience it. Its just a little hard to know we are moving into a much harder part of caring for Natalie.

On a different note, we are also nearing the approach of weaning. It is actually making me a little sad. Even now, the last few days, Natalie has been ending out nursing sessions very abruptly by getting fussy and rolling away off my lap. Sometimes, she comes right back to me. At night, this is putting a bit of a damper on our calm bed time. I think we need to tweak it a little to accommodate for her changing behavior.