mom guilt

I'm a stay at home mom.  Which means I am with my kid 24/7.  She's my little shadow, literally following me EVERYWHERE I go.  I love being able to spend so much time with her while she's little; but I take it granted.  And I feel so guilty about it, like every single day guilty.

But I'm pregnant and feel like a sloth with stomach flu and arthritis most days.  My hip joints hurt so bad I can barely walk by night.  I'm queasy all day and night.  I want to make a nest on the couch and watch marathons of Ancient Aliens.

I also have a crochet business, and I love it.  But each project takes AT LEAST an hour to do.  Honestly most projects take around 5 hours (people love hats with a lot of details).  So I spend several hours a day working on projects because I don't like for people to wait too long for their orders and I'm OCD and can't stand having unfinished projects in my life. 

Speaking of OCD...I like having a clean house.  So I clean.  A LOT.  Like every single day a lot. 

So I clean, then I rest, then I crochet, then I rest...repeat.

But I have a 3 year old....

She usually follows me around when I clean, trying to 'help' with her little duster (heck yes, give your kid a Swiffer duster and put him/her to work!) or I give her baby wipes to clean while I use Pledge or Lysol wipes on my furniture and in my kitchen.  When I clean the bathrooms she sits in the hall and asks "mommy what you doing?" about 1393285 times which is AWESOME when I'm up to my elbows in Scrubbing Bubbles and trying not to breathe in the fumes. 

When I crochet I turn into one of those awesome moms that expects my kid to zombie out to Nick Jr or Disney cartoons.  Hey, she's learning Chinese from Kai-lan and learning Mozart from Little Einsteins and learning shapes from Team Umizoomi!

But I feel guilty for not doing enough awesomely creative crafty projects that will allow my child to go to college by the age of 10.

I blame Facebook and Pinterest for this guilt.

Darn you people that post on Facebook all the awesome stuff you do with your kids.  Homemade play-doh?  Good for you.  I've got some Play-Doh...in a basket....up on my fridge.  We played with it this one time.  Morgan ended up making this phallic statue that made me laugh until I cry and I took a picture and texted it to all my friends of my toddler holding this big wiener shaped Play-Doh creation.

And the statuses...'taking my 6 kids to the zoo with homemade organic snacks for the afternoon!'

Bleh.

I take Morgan with me to Walmart....sometimes I buy her a Belly Washer.  It's 100% juice.  We people watch.  Seriously, what's the difference between Walmart and the zoo?  You have hippos fighting in the frozen food section, baby lions biting each other in the video games, and there's even an aquarium where most of the fish aren't floating at the top if you get to the fish section early enough in the day.

Darn you Pinterest for the '100 things to do with toddlers this summer' posts where I'm supposed to go to Lowe's and buy some sort of tubing to punch holes in and hook up to my water hose and create a little water park in my front yard.  I guess sitting on the front porch spraying my kid until her diaper falls off doesn't count?  What about spraying the neighbor's dog?  What?!  He shouldn't be in my yard....

And my favorite Pinterest post - the Time Out Chair.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

You take a little chair, paint it all pretty, and put 'time out chair' on it.  Because a PRETTY chair will totally make your kid understand that they were BAD and that if they sit and reflect in that chair they will learn their lesson and move on to becoming president of the United States someday after learning to be honest and kind and wonderful.

Our version of time out is sending Morgan to her room....where her TV is usually on...and we cross our fingers that she gets distracted by whatever is on TV and won't come back and bother us for a while.

I'm glad that there are some awesome moms out there that put 110% into their kids and I salute you.  Seriously, you're awesome. 

You make me feel guilty though.

Stop it.