It finally happened. After nearly ten years of being a parent, I finally did it. I forgot my baby.

My baby is 8 years old. So he was old enough to know that he had been temporarily forgotten. Luckily, in true Little Guy fashion, he wasn’t upset. He was more perplexed. He couldn’t understand why.

Of course, he got over it. But the mother guilt was enormous.

You see, I didn’t just forget because I let time get away from me. It wasn’t as if seeing the school name on my home caller id - fifteen minutes after the half-day dismissal time - even triggered my memory, reminding me that today was early release.

Instead, my first reaction was that he had gotten sick. Or gotten hurt. It never dawned on me that I was supposed to have picked him up.

And that is the source of my guilty conscious. I forgot to pick up Little Guy simply because I didn’t do my motherly duty of reading the e-mail reminders. Transferring the dates from the school calendar to my own. For this, there was really no excuse. No rational explanation. And I can always come up with a rational explanation.

Hence, my frustration. I have always prided myself on my ability to forget nothing. I have lists for my lists and rarely fall short when it comes to recalling my to-do’s. But over the past six months, I have noticed a decline in my ability to remember everything.

Maybe it’s juggling a few more things. Maybe it’s that the boys are getting older and therefore, a little more responsible. Which, in some way, gives me permission to forget. Whatever the reason, forgetting to pick up Little Guy - well, let’s be honest - not even knowing I had to pick up Little Guy - was a wake-up call.

When I went to retrieve him in the office, I found a little compassion in the fact that there were a handful of kids who had also been forgotten. But that feeling quickly changed as I spotted my Little Guy, sitting alone on the piano bench, with his jacket on, backpack still on his shoulder, 35 minutes after it had been originally placed there. I felt as though I should temporarily get my mother card revoked.

But I like happy endings and Little Guy got his. For out of my guilt came a stop at Chargrill for lunch, complete with the milkshake and fries, followed by the purchase of that new Snuggie blanket with arms. The one he’s seen on infomercials for months. The one I swore was a total waste of money, because we have plenty of good, warm blankets to snuggle up with. And seriously, arms?

I think he’s hoping I forget again.

Illyse appears Thursday on TriangleMom2Mom.