The Young and the Restless

The park incident

I'm trying to decide if I was being a really good mom or a really bad mom.  I took the boys to the park while Kylie was at activity days a couple of blocks away.  I lost track of time and when I checked the clock I realized I was already late picking her up.  I told Jayden atleast 6 times that it was time to go, I made 3 different trips to the car loading up sand toys, flip flops, water bottles and Maddox, each time telling Jayden to get in the car.  Finally I'm loaded up, the car is on and he is still playing in the sand.  I'm yelling out the window at him that I'm leaving, and every other kid on the playground looks at me but him.  So I did it.  I drove away.  I knew I would only be gone a couple of minutes and that he needed to learn his lesson about being obedient.  I was gone no more than 4 minutes but when I came back he was standing there sobbing as another dad in the ward was trying to help him.  When I saw him crying so hard that he could barely breathe, not only did I worry that the dad would call CPS (and I'm sure he also vowed right then and there to never let his kids play at our house), but I worried that maybe that wasn't the best way to teach him the lesson. Several times throughout the rest of the evening his little eyes would spill over with tears and he would remind me how scared he was.  As I tucked him into bed that night his little chin started quivering and he told me that I had broken his heart. I love that boy and he was breaking mine. We had a good talk about consequences and hopefully he will learn from this and listen the next time I tell him that it's time to go, either that or he'll suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and seperation anxiety.  Good moms follow through with their threats, good moms let their kids learn through natural consequences, good moms make their kids learn the hard lessons in life, so if I did the things that a good mom should then why do I feel so rotten?