Mom Guilt

Today, I had an eye doctor’s appointment at 4:30. I got out of work around 3pm, stopped for my free coffee from Cumberland Farms (every Friday in October, in case you didn’t know already), and headed home.

I pushed through the door, and the dogs greeted me as if I were the Queen of England herself, come back from a month-long trip. My first instinct was to be pleased; flattered, even. And then I realized that this enthusiastic greeting could only mean that they hadn’t been let out yet. So I let them out. Then I carried my 17 bags and my free coffee into the kitchen, and the smell of beef stew in the crock pot made me breathe deeply and smile. All was well.

I checked in on the two kids who were already home. Both were in their rooms, watching something or other on a screen, but the house was amazingly quiet (and delicious-smelling), so I decided to enjoy a moment of peace and finish reading my book. About 20 minutes later, I started to shift gears. The eye doctor is two towns over, and the traffic at this time of day is unpredictable. I have to get ready to leave.

I glance at the clock. It’s almost 3:30. That’s odd. My youngest usually gets off the bus around 3:20, and I haven’t seen him yet. I checked the house. I checked the yard. No luck. But then I noticed his skateboard was missing and his backpack was in the driveway. He didn’t even come inside; he just took off to his friend’s house.

Now I’m annoyed, but I’m pretty sure I know where he is, so I pack up my things and drive up the road to his friend’s house. I coax him into the car, away from the outdoors and his friend. I feel a little guilty about pulling him away, but I don’t want him roaming the neighborhood while I’m at my appointment. I ask if he wants to come with me, not sure what I’d prefer his answer to be. He declines politely, and agrees to stay on our own property with his siblings while I’m gone.

So I headed to the eye doctor, got my new contacts and ordered new glasses. I got stuck in traffic on the way home, so I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to enjoy my beef stew and chat with the kids before I had to head out again; this time to fulfill my promise to help with the church rummage sale. My husband and I crossed paths on my way out the door. At the rummage sale, I picked up a few great deals, helped a little with organizing and cleaning, and had a lot of laughs with a few of my friends.

Overall, this sounds like a pretty good night, right? But when I got home, the kids were watching Spider Man with their father. At that moment, I rewind the evening in my mind, and I start to fear that they have been in front of screens all afternoon. How much YouTube did they watch while I was gone? When is the last time I checked their history? Their musical.ly accounts? Have they done anything productive today? And the mom guilt sets in. There are a lot of triggers for my mom guilt, but screen time is probably the biggest one. The worry starts to settle in…

And here’s where I need to shift the tone of this story. Because, as it turns out, mom guilt is not what I needed to write about tonight.

I was typing this post… the post about screen time and mom guilt, while the kids were watching Spider Man . I mean, I wasn’t feeling guilty enough to pull them away from movie night with their father. I was just feeling guilty enough to write about it.

I was on top of my bed, lying on my stomach, in the middle of typing a sentence. I felt my son crawl on top of me and snuggle into my neck. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked. I showed him my earlier Facebook post about the miscreant who only eats muffin tops and leaves the uneaten bottoms on the kitchen counter. “Oops. That was me. But the bus was here, and I wasn’t done yet but I only kind of liked the muffins anyway. I mean, they were okay but I didn’t love them and so I couldn’t finish. You get it, right mom?” That was the moment when the story changed. We talked about muffins, and decided to make his favorite this time. At 9:30 at night, we whipped up some blueberry muffins. While we stirred and folded (he’s proud that he knows how to ‘fold in’ the blueberries) and greased the pan, he told me about his day. It turns out he didn’t just play on screens all afternoon. He played with his pets. He thought he lost the hedgehog again, but he found it behind the toy box (phew). He told me about a hedgehog fanny pack (no joke, this is an actual thing) that he wants for Christmas, and as the muffins baked, we looked it up online. He showed me the new kind of food he wants to try for his guinea pig, and demonstrated how he scrutinizes the ingredients to find the best kind. We looked at pictures of marmosets and marveled at how expensive they are.

And then my youngest joined us. We lay on the bed together; a big pile of gangly limbs and little smiles and smelly dogs. We had a tickle war. We ate warm muffins. I piggy-backed the little one to bed, and the pain in my lower back is a bittersweet reminder that I should remember that moment.  He’s not so little anymore, and there’s a really good chance that was his last piggy-back ride. I gave them ‘mom cuddles’ and tucked them in tight and kissed them goodnight. And after all that, I don’t have any time left for ‘mom guilt.’   I have to get my rest because tomorrow will be another busy day of actual, joyful, maddening, beautiful mothering.