Mom Guilt

Who hasn’t had it? I have it on a daily basis. Do I spend enough time with them? Am I too hard on them? Do they know how much I love them? Am I doing enough? Am I teaching them everything they need to know to survive in this world? The answer is no, probably, hope so, who knows, and yes. It is all of those answers and it changes all the time.

I know that there are days that I don’t earn my Mommy badge. There are days that I totally rocked it as a Mom. There are days that I just did my damn best and tried to survive until bedtime.

I read this article the other day and afterward I was thinking “Amen Sister!!”

I was so glad that I am not the only one who doesn’t LOVE every moment of Motherhood. I hear Moms who say that they “absolutely love every minute of being with their children” and I think “what the hell is she taking and can I have some of it?”

But seriously. I love my kids, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t love every minute of being with them. Sometimes it just downright SUCKS!!

When the kids are fighting for the bajillionth time over the dumbest toy that neither of them cared about 2 seconds ago. When Harper is throwing her food on the floor, Paxton is doing cartwheels off the couch and I have 10 piles of laundry that need washed, dried or folded. When bath time feels like WWIII, or bedtime is still 3 hours away and both kids are in full meltdown mode. Those are the times that I think “nope, not enjoying this right now, can someone please come tag me out?”

Unfortunately, parenting is not like a game of basketball. You don’t get a sub, you can’t call a time-out and nobody wins or loses. It’s survival of the fittest.

And then there are times that Harper will come up to me out of the blue and give me a kiss and say “love you much” or Paxton says “you look beautiful Mommy” (that’s his new thing, I am diggin’ it, big time), those are the times that you know you are doing something right. 

My favorite quote in the article was:

“Anyway. Clearly, Carpe Diem doesn't work for me. I can't even carpe fifteen minutes in a row, so a whole diem is out of the question.”

Word.

So I am making an effort to be less hard on myself and just try to enjoy the fleeting moments of pure joy that happen every day. Playing soccer with Pax in the backyard, tripping over him and falling to the ground laughing; Harper coming over to sit in my lap and snuggle when I am in the middle of folding laundry; an impromptu dance party in the living room with both of the kids. Those are the moments that you think “ah…. this is why I do it, this is what all the hard work is for, this is what makes being a Mother one of the best jobs in the world, this is my carpe diem.”

And I will seize those few minutes, I will tuck them away in my memory, and save them for a bad day. And we all know the bad days outnumber the good, but the good days are SO good!!

So if you can carpe 15 minutes a day, then I say you are doing a pretty damn good job and I tip my Mommy hat to you!!