Hmmm...guilt much?

Haven’t updated the blog in several days and that makes me feel guilty. Yeah, like I have a big audience out there and they are all so disappointed that they are sitting at their computers looking at my blog and hitting the refresh button in vain every few minutes. I have had so much going on lately and I find myself thinking, that would make great blog material…I need picture of X for my blog. But, here I am, no recent updates in sight.

Yesterday, I read a blog entry from a dear friend from my mommy forum. She is a beautiful soul with 3 gorgeous children – one of whom happens to have special needs. You can read her blog post here: http://colofisch.blogspot.com/2009/08/iceberg.html

I can’t even begin to compare myself to Jenny – I can only hope that if faced with the same set up circumstances, I would able to do it with as much strength and grace as she does. So aside from all that – she brings up a really good points about parents in general whether she meant to or not. And that is what has been stewing around in the back of my mind since I read her post.

As parents, as moms, we are constantly being judged – or at least that is how we feel. Mommy Guilt is something that jumps out to bite me more than I care to admit. And that, my friends, is really just a fear of being judged – by other parents, by teachers, by family members, heck, even by my kids. I am a working mama! I love my job and sometimes, I feel so guilty that I do! And I feel like maybe other parents who spend more time home with their kids doing all those fun crafty things that it never occurs to me to do are judging me – Psssttt…that woman would rather be in an office all day than be at home raising her babies. Well, I do love being in an office and I also love raising my babies. Anyone who has met my little princesses would have to admit that I (okay, we – me and Dan) have done a pretty darn good job! They are sweet, smart, well-mannered (most of the time) – and I love them both to pieces!!! But, there is that little niggling voice in the back of my head that tells me that maybe I lack somehow because I want to go to work – I choose to leave my girls each day. I look at them and sometimes wonder if they would have been better off if I had stayed home with them? Then I think, no, I don’t see how they could be – aren’t they already perfect?

Then there is the matter of what they eat - am I doing the right things? I pack lunches most days, I try to be "green" and I think I do a pretty job, but I did not get there overnight. The first time I ever packed Savannah's lunch (she was not quite 2), I packed her 1/2 of a lunchable and a half a banana. Some people would gasp at the sodium. Others might just say I was being lazy. But hey, she was being fed, she was happy. :) Nowadays, my new thing is a waste-free lunch - lunch bag, thermos, even cloth napkins. I pack them "bento style" and get a kick out of putting things in little compartments and making it look cute. So which is better? Is either one really? In both cases, it got the job done? Just saying...

It goes on and on - whay they eat, what they wear, what we do in our spare time...

I saw a post on facebook today about a coworker who recently had a baby and decided to leave her job at SJ to take something that would allow her more time at home. On the one hand, I am thinking great for her, and I am reading all the congrats she got - all the kudos for "choosing what it important," "work will always be there, but your babies are only little one." Bam! Judging - mommy guilt!!! Now I know that there was really no judging there - those people making those (very nice) comments don't even know me. But...that is how it felt to me.

I am sitting her blogging while the girls watch Bindi the Jungle girl and Savannah eats an ice cream cone and Tara walks around in my high heels that I wore to work. Should I be spending this time doing some creative activity with them? But as Savannah climbs up beside me to talk about her day and hug on me and tell me she loves me and Tara climbs up in her "me too" mode - Nah...for now at least we are all exactly where we need to be.