Hurting My Kid

aaah, i'm in pain right now, and i don't think i've ever hurt my daughter as much as i did today. i've never seen her cry such deep tears of upset and disbelief. i disclipined her today by taking away her bedtime story. she misbehaved and i gave her many chances, counted down, threatened etc. and then took her down to 1 story, and then she acted up again and i took away her one story. and i knew it would hurt me, b/c it would unsettle her before bed, which would make falling asleep harder for her, and yet i felt she would only learn if she saw that i would not change my mind. but she cried and cried her heart out and i'm so sad.

and to make it worse, she acts up usually when i don't give her enough activities during the day, and today i left her at my mom's from 4-9 pm, where they didnt have much to do. so i always feels bad when i feel like i didn't give her enough of my time of day, but i have this project i need to finish by next week and i'm no where close to finishing it... aaaahhhh. poor baby.

What is right? am i doing the right form of disciplining? i don't feel like this is going to hurt her long term, b/c i did warn her. and i'll shower her with love tomorrow to show her i love her, but that she can't act up in rude behavior. ... i don't know...

and i lost her today. and the worst thing is i didn't even notice till minutes later. we were at teh library and she was on the computer and i was doing puzzles with her sister. when i finally got up, i noticed she was gone. i went searching for her and found the librarian and another woman bringing her in, apparently she had been outside looking for me, thinking i had left her and gone to the park. and then the two women went off and started whispering, and i could just imagine them talking about this irresponsible foreigner who didn't care for her kid... subhanaAllah. alhamdulillah He protected her and me from feeling the fear of losing my daughter to human's moment of weakness and non-omniscense.