A Serving of Working Mom Guilt, Please

January 23, 2012 by ·

I’m struggling tonight.

I’ve started a new job, which I love, but I’m playing the Working Mom Guilt Game, which I hate. And tonight I lost.

Last night, after a fun and busy weekend, I stood at the kitchen counter to make my lunch for today. Connor came over and asked me what I was doing. “Making my lunch,” I said. “Why?” he asked. “Because I have to go to work tomorrow.”

And then came the face.

“I thought you didn’t have to go to work every day.”

I hate that face.

We’ve had this conversation several times in the last couple of weeks. He wants me to play with him in the morning or sit with him while he eats his breakfast. I want to do that too. I love mornings with him. It’s quiet, I’m not thinking about all the things I have to get done, and it’s just me and him. But weekday mornings are too short, and more often than not lately he isn’t even up when I leave for work, which steals at least half an hour I’d otherwise get to spend with him. When he is up I inevitably get, “Do you have to go to work today? [sad face]” So as we approach weekends I get to do the “Guess what?!” thing and tell him I don’t have to work. We talk about the things we’re going to do and he gets that excited, I-get-my-mama face.

I love that face.

What I don’t love is the other end of the day when I come home after a day—preceded too often by too little sleep—from a new job that makes my brain tired. When I have spent all day in an office full of people, talking and laughing and working and learning, and my inner introvert just wants to sit in my quiet bedroom by myself for a while.

3-year-olds don’t let you sit in your bedroom by yourself for any length of time. At least mine doesn’t.

So I come home after working to a little guy who wants his mom to play with him, which, as the last thing I feel like doing, induces massive guilt.

Working Mom Guilt.

I’m not here when I want to be and when I am here I spend too much time wanting something else. It sucks.

dinosaur-at-the-zoo

This is what I missed while I was at work today.

This is especially tough right now because I’m working a slightly longer day than I used to and I work farther away, both of which slice into my momming time. And he’s going to bed later, which slices into my me time.

Nobody’s winning here, people. (And don’t even get me started on all the blog reading and commenting I’m not doing.)

Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe we all will. Maybe we won’t. In any case, tonight my working mom guilt came with a side order of the Monday tireds and some irrational, the-toddler-is-chewing-too-loud annoyance and I had to leave the room to take a deep breath.

My mama mug spilleth over, and I don’t know what to do about it.

 

Filed Under: Conversations with Connor, Hard things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , , ,

Words of Winter

January 17, 2012 by ·

I did ask for it, so I can’t complain. We were waiting for winter, and winter is here.

It got cold on Sunday (-18 degrees C which is 0 degrees F, or slightly lower I think) but we braved the elements. Connor has a new sled and it’s a hit. Thursday and Friday’s outings, by all reports, were great. Cold in a refreshing way but not cheek-bitingly cold.

Sunday was cheek-bitingly cold.*

We went out anyway. Got bundled up—which, for a kid who generally opts to be naked, is quite a feat—and trekked to the park.

He pulled the sled on the way there.

And his excitement was written all over his face.

toddler with sled

And that’s a memory worth capturing.

*(Although, at -30C/-22F the last couple of days have been worse. Whose ideas was this again?)

 

And speaking of new things, I’m on Just.Be.Enough today talking about my new views.

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , , , ,

Tick-Tock Goes the Clock

January 16, 2012 by ·
clock

Image credit: Caucas on Flickr

I lie beside him as the early afternoon sun streams through the blinds. As I wait for him to fall asleep every wiggle-squirm feels like a tick-tock of the clock.

Will he sleep? I want him to nap so we can go on our planned adventure later this afternoon. I need him to nap so I can get a few things done.

The thought crosses my mind—as it has done so many times before—that it would be so nice if he were one of those kids who will fall asleep without my staying with him until he’s out.

But he’s not one of those kids.

He wiggle-squirms again and the clock tick-tocks.

I hear the dishwasher running downstairs and I think of my semi-clean kitchen. I make a mental list of what I want to try to accomplish while he’s asleep so another weekend doesn’t go by without getting anything done, leaving chaos to reign.

Tick-tock goes the clock.

The wiggle-squirms start to slow, and I hear the familiar deep breathing that’s a sign of coming sleep. Everything in me starts to slow, too, and the sound of the dishwasher fades into an awareness of quiet.

Just when I think he’s asleep, he takes my arm and pulls it around him, then pulls it around some more so he’s wrapped tightly. This is going to be a hard one to get out of without waking him, I think.

In the quiet room, awash in bright sunlight, I feel his warmth. I sense his breathing. I feel his quiet.

The tick-tock of the clock comes back, but this time it’s a different awareness. Not of things to do and bathrooms to clean but of passing days, a growing boy and the fleeting nature of this time when he’ll let me lie with my arms around him while he sleeps.

So I lie there a little longer, cherishing his small-boy softness and his warmth and his peacefulness.

I want to remember this.

So I write it down.

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , ,

Toddler is My Co-Pilot

January 15, 2012 by ·

Having an extremely observant 3-year-old is not necessarily always a good thing.

I had promised Connor an adventure yesterday, so we hopped in the car and headed to a park nearby where, if you’re lucky, you can see porcupines. Big ones. The problem was I wasn’t sure exactly how to get there.

Connor noticed, and the conversation went something like this:

“Mommy, why are we turning around?”

“Because I turned the wrong way. The park is in the other direction.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then comes out with this:

“Mommy, we shouldn’t drive without Daddy because he knows the way.”

Oh ye of little faith.

We drive a little longer.

“Hmm,” I muse aloud.

“What?” he asks.

I’m starting to regret telling him he should admire the view instead of having a book on my iPhone.

“Mommy’s just not that good at finding the way in new places.”

“Do you have a map?”

“Yes, I have one on my phone.”

“Well let’s use it.”

As if it were the most logical suggestion in the world. Which it is. 

Stubbornly, I drive a few more blocks.

“C’mon, let’s use the map,” he says again.

Fine. 

“I’ll keep an eye on Finley,” Connor says, as though we’re going to get stranded and the dog in the back is going to need comforting.

Meanwhile I get the map to tell us how to get there—I was close, ha ha, as long as you ignore the fact that I’m going in circles—and we continue on, much to Connor’s relief (and the dog’s too, I’m sure).

I really, really hope he gets his dad’s sense of direction.

 

PS We did get there.  

park-city-skyline


Filed Under: Conversations with Connor · Tagged With: , , ,

Waving the White Flag

January 12, 2012 by ·
white_flag_tattered

Image credit: Neil Wykes on Flickr

I’ve given up. Given in. Surrendered.

At the end of December I saw the info about January’s National Blog Posting Month, in which the goal is to post every day for the month. Like the impulsive git I am, I signed up.

I immediately knew it was dumb. That this, of all times, isn’t the right time for me to be able to do that. But I saw a comment from someone who had done this previously, and she indicated she’d found it really helped her writing. Like the glutton for punishment I am, I thought that sounded great.

The thing is, it was great. Even though I only lasted 10 days (9? not long anyway) I actually really liked it. It did help me think about writing in different ways and I enjoyed the challenge. But the other night I called it quits. I admitted what I had known was coming, took a deep breath and packed it in.

Life is a little easier now, and I feel less like my head is going to explode every night. I’m going to bed at a decent time and getting up earlier to have extra cuddles and cartoons or to go to the gym in the morning.

But I’ve lost momentum, and my writing mojo. I no longer know what to say. I’ll find my groove again, I’m sure, and go back to posting a reasonable amount and focusing on what I really want to share.

But for now I’m waving the white flag.

Filed Under: Randomness, Writing · Tagged With: , ,
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