On the side of my blog, I have a blog roll. One of those blogs is from a brother-in-law of a friend of mine who went to high school with me. The brother--in-law suddenly lost his 2-year-old boy exactly 2 years ago today.
Take a minute and read his blog post for today. And make sure you have a couple of tissues close by. And then go hug and kiss your children and feel blessed and thankful for your life.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
Guilt
I think as a general rule, if you're a parent of younger children, not a day goes by that you don't feel guilty about something.
When the kids were younger, I had a harder time with it. I thought that since I stayed at home, I should be entertaining my children pretty much all day. And if I plopped them in front of the television for a little bit, I wasn't doing my "job". (Now keep in mind that nobody ever told me that's what they thought--those were just expectations I had for myself.)
Of course I ended up having a time of the day for the kids to watch a movie, but it didn't mean that I was OK with it.
And we can't forget about all the times I've lost my temper with the kids and said, did, acted out in a way I shouldn't have. That's still a problem for me.
And now that the kids are older, they can actually verbalize how they feel. I think I've mentioned it before, but Riley is already pulling the whole, "You love him more than you love me." Ah, the companion to guilt: the guilt trip.
Overall I struggle a lot with guilt.
I feel guilty for not spending enough time with the kids, which in turn makes me feel guilty for not spending enough time with the husband, which in turn makes me feel guilty for not taking time for myself. And most of the time, I put myself last.
I've tried in the past to put aside those feelings of guilt, but they tend to resurface when I'm the most frazzled. There are times when it feels like I have so much on my plate (because I have a very difficult time in saying no since I don't want to let people down). I joke with Phil that I sometimes feel like a particular episode of Saved by the Bell when Jessie is taking the caffeine pills because she can't fit everything in that she needs to. When Zach confronts her, she says that there's never enough time. Yeah, that's me.
So I'm going to try my hardest to not let guilt make decisions for me. Yes, I know there will be times when I take the kids out for ice cream because I feel bad for not spending enough time with them. And yes, there will be times where I play one more game even though I am dead tired because he/she asked. But I'd like to think that I do these things because I'm their mom and not because I feel guilty.
When the kids were younger, I had a harder time with it. I thought that since I stayed at home, I should be entertaining my children pretty much all day. And if I plopped them in front of the television for a little bit, I wasn't doing my "job". (Now keep in mind that nobody ever told me that's what they thought--those were just expectations I had for myself.)
Of course I ended up having a time of the day for the kids to watch a movie, but it didn't mean that I was OK with it.
And we can't forget about all the times I've lost my temper with the kids and said, did, acted out in a way I shouldn't have. That's still a problem for me.
And now that the kids are older, they can actually verbalize how they feel. I think I've mentioned it before, but Riley is already pulling the whole, "You love him more than you love me." Ah, the companion to guilt: the guilt trip.
Overall I struggle a lot with guilt.
I feel guilty for not spending enough time with the kids, which in turn makes me feel guilty for not spending enough time with the husband, which in turn makes me feel guilty for not taking time for myself. And most of the time, I put myself last.
I've tried in the past to put aside those feelings of guilt, but they tend to resurface when I'm the most frazzled. There are times when it feels like I have so much on my plate (because I have a very difficult time in saying no since I don't want to let people down). I joke with Phil that I sometimes feel like a particular episode of Saved by the Bell when Jessie is taking the caffeine pills because she can't fit everything in that she needs to. When Zach confronts her, she says that there's never enough time. Yeah, that's me.
So I'm going to try my hardest to not let guilt make decisions for me. Yes, I know there will be times when I take the kids out for ice cream because I feel bad for not spending enough time with them. And yes, there will be times where I play one more game even though I am dead tired because he/she asked. But I'd like to think that I do these things because I'm their mom and not because I feel guilty.
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