GUILT

Yesterday I was overcome with the hugest amount of "mother guilt" ever.
I was at lunch with my friend, Cynthia, and she was looking at the pictures I had just picked up at Costco. She was looking at this picture

and asking me about different kids in the family. And then she said "where's Taylor?" (Now, she is his 2nd mother and also his primary teacher, so she would naturally ask about him). I say, "He's in there somewhere, probably by Jadon." She scans the picture and can't find him. I get a little stressed at this point. Now it's just a picture but I have that same feeling when you can't find one of your kids. What really stressed me out is at the time the picture was taken I didn't have that feeling. MAJOR GUILT! So I think, he must have thought we were done taking pictures and left, since this was the last picture we had taken and it was with a different camera.
When I got home I took out the other picture and look at it,

no Taylor. I couldn't believe it. Where was he? So I think back and remember that after the picture when we were gathering up our stuff to go on the ship he was sitting on a couch watching some Disney cartoon. He must have been there the whole time we were taking the pictures. I feel so bad. Mostly because I hadn't noticed he wasn't with us while we were taking the picture and then for not noticing he wasn't in then after we'd studied it quite a bit. Thank goodness for Cynthia noticing my son.
Later, we were at my mom's and she has an 8x10 of this picture on her kitchen counter. Taylor came in and looked at the picture. I'd decided not to say anything to him and try to scan him into the picture (with help from some great friend who knows how to do things like that - hint, hint). Anyway, first thing Taylor says is "Where am I?" I tell him he must have been watching TV and he says "No one told me we were taking a picture." How sad! The poor middle child that I can't keep track of.