So E has finally gotten settled for her long nights nap ... and I finally get some time to relax. But then again ... I feel as if I have been relaxing all week. It has been a long week of feeling like a bad mother.
I guess I should start at the beginning ...
R gets home in about 1.75 hours ... he has been away on business. Oh ... did i forget to mention that he is gone one week out of every month? Because he is ... and it is miserable. Love my country though I do, i would be the most terrible military wife. I can hardly stand being away from R for the eight hour work day ... much less the unbearable-ness of the entire week.
[side-bar ... although R and I are newlyweds it is not like we are new to this game. We have spent three years together ... you would think that we would be able to be apart for even 8 hours ... yea ... not that easy ... and slightly ... ok ... really ridiculous.]
ANYWAY ... I do have a point here ... so the day R left was the day that my body decided to get sick. I think is just allergies ... but from my neck up everything throbs ... even my teeth. However, this particular trip happens to be the first of me being a full time mom ... wow ... if that wasn't scary enough now I'm sick ... thanks universe ... I really owe you one.
So that is where the bad mother feeling comes. I have been trying to push through not feeling well and play with E ... but man ... who knew being a mom is so hard! It is so funny how sitting down writing a blog while they are painting or playing alone with their toys ... still in their pajamas at noon ... can make you feel so guilty.
But should we feel guilty?
If we are trying our hardest to be the best mom we can be ... and all we have in us that day is putting paint on a palette for them shouldn't that be good enough? Why so much guilt? Maybe it was because the one time this past week where I really sat down to play with E I saw her eyes light up so bright ... almost in disbelief ... ouch ...
I was talking to my friend Sarah yesterday at the library ... my one feeble attempt to get E out of the house [Thursdays are her "has nothing" days] ... and we talked about how by allowing a child to play alone they are growing their imagination ... if you don't ever let them play alone then they will never have the ability to play alone. I see that in E a little bit. I am not entirely sure how things are at her moms house, but I do know that E can never been in a different room from me. her room has a lot of cool toys ... even a white board on the wall that she totally loves ... but she will not be upstairs alone ... if we are downstairs we have to be in the same room. I don't know why that is ... and I don't know enough about children to know if that is normal ... but it does seem a little odd to me ... when I was younger I remember loving my alone time ... but then again I had a horde of neighborhood kids everywhere to play with.
What I guess I am getting at is that we shouldn't feel guilty for being sick ... we shouldn't feel guilty for having macaroni and cheese three nights in a row because that's all we can muster to cook [don't worry ... there was a vegetable and fruit with every dinner] ... we should just appreciate that the imagination is growing and that we have good enough kids to realize when we need a little relaxation time in the middle of the day when they are still wide awake.
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