Too Hard on Myself

Yesterday morning I got up at 6 a.m. as I usually do. I chatted with TR and saw him off to school, while working on my grocery lists and addressing another 5 or 6 Holiday Cards. I also wrapped four books to put in the mail and pulled the empty ink cartridge from the printer.

RM was still asleep and V doesn’t leave for work until noon, so I took a quick shower, got dressed and hopped in the car to run a few errands alone. (So much quicker that way.) I went to the post office, the bank, the ink refill place and two grocery stores for a week’s worth of groceries.

When I got home V carried up the groceries while I nursed RM who was awake and looking for me by then. I put away all the food, cleaned some stuff out of the fridge then got some leftovers out to warm up for lunch. I took a minute to run downstairs and throw in a load of laundry, and when I came back up noticed the neighbor’s dogs were in our yard, and one of ours was in theirs.

So I went to the garage and got some replacement fence pickets and screws and some tools. I sorted out the dogs into the proper yards as best I could (ended up with one extra on my side and decided to leave her until the neighbors got home) then replaced the chewed up pickets to fix the hole in the fence.

Then I came back inside, dusted the mud off myself and went back to fixing lunch and got everyone fed. V left for work and I stripped RM down and put her in a bubble bath. While she splashed and played around in the tub (thank goodness for clear shower curtains, see through water containment for little ones) I cleaned the bathroom. When she was done I got her dressed and went back to the kitchen to see what I needed to get out for supper later. Then I got RM out of the tub again, where she had sat down in the not completely drained water in her clean clothes, and dressed her again.

By this time it’s about 1:30 and I got her settled down for a nap. For the next half hour, I sat and did pretty much nothing. By this point in my day I really had earned a few minutes of rest, I know.

But I felt guilty about it.

December 8th, 2007 Posted by Tracy | This "Is" My Life, The "Mom" Me | one comment