Sorry, I neglected you

I felt guilty today.

These few days, hubby and I were very caught up in Kieran's issues. Whenever we do activity, like the "Bucket activity" and colouring and writing, I will focus on teaching and explaining to Kieran, while I just let Caitlin do some activity on her own without guidance. When she started to disturb Kieran, I asked hubby to take her away, regardless of her protest and her cries. She must have felt so unfair. She must want so much for me to show attention on her.

Kieran's high sensitivity means that we need to spend a lot of time to patiently guide him and clarify his queries. When Caitlin is around and also needing our attention, we don't seem to notice her. Kieran is like the centre of the attention while Caitlin is at the peripheral of our vision, we noticed her but we don't take much notice of her. I love her very much and I wished I could give her more of me.

More of me is what Caitlin wanted very much. She will do naughty things and make a fuss so that I would hold her and hug her. She wants to be loved by me. But even as I hold her, I wasn't focusing on her, I would be talking to Kieran and making sure he felt ok, and not overwhelmed, etc. It seemed that I was holding her to pacify her, so that she wouldn't fuss, but even as I was physically with her, I wasn't totally with her.

Caitlin has two types of cries- one is the angry cry and the other is sad cry. Today before bed time, she cried really sadly. It was heartbreaking. It was after I saw her crying that I realised that she cried because she was hurt, and she was hurt because she was being neglected. She hugged me tightly at bed time and pushed Kieran away. She said "I don't want Kieran!" Kieran asked me, "Why did mei mei say that she don't want me?" I know why. It is because our parental attention to both children were too unfair. I hugged Caitlin and kissed her and promised her that I will show more attention and love to her. She fell asleep soon. But I felt so guilty that she had to fall asleep feeling so lousy.