Flawed Life: Just Mom

This week I missed a hair appointment because I got stuck at work and then preceded to get lost going to a place I have been at least four times. This is my life. I got there and of course she couldn't work me in. I was irate! I have been going to this lady for almost five years and you can't give me a break and work me in? I couldn't even reschedule because I didn't know Michael's work schedule, and what we had going on. I couldn't even plan when I had my next thirty minutes free!

I went back to my car and I admit I cried. That is what I do when I am mad. But as I drove home still pretty angry at her, my sense of direction, the lady that kept me the ten extra minutes at work, the traffic and the lady driving slow in front of me I asked myself what I was really mad about?

I wasn't really mad. I was disappointed. I may have took it out on the lady driving slow in front of me. I may have road her tail a little too close because eventually she flipped me off. In my defense she wasn't going the speed limit on the country road. But I shouldn't defend my actions. It is not her fault I have no time to decompress and hop straight into "Mom" mode when I get home. It is the disadvantage of being the early off parent.

Thirty minutes...that is all I need. I had been looking forward to the thirty minutes of peace for weeks. Thirty minutes of pampering, of someone else fixing my hair. Instead of a night brushing off the one year with one hand and stirring veggies with the other, while the dog is barking at a deer and my husband isn't home at his normal 6:30 after being home for two hours alone already. Just thirty minutes of peace. Thirty minutes of not feeling guilty that I didn't read Lily the story she was handing me because I was sweeping so when she sat on the living room floor she didn't rise up looking like a miniature version of our black lab. Is that too much to ask? So really was it thirty minutes without guilt that I was looking forward too?

I get two hours of uninterrupted time with Lily every weekday afternoon. I regret to say not everyday do I take advantage of that. In fact, more days I don't than I do. Two hours to snuggle and read stories and play outside with her that Daddy misses out on. But most days I am too bogged down with the house stuff, the dinner stuff and distracted with the TV and the dogs, and the phone and the computer. Don't I know how lucky I am? No all I think about is all the stuff I am not getting done.

But I have promised myself I will not do this anymore...okay as much. I mean we still have to eat! Maybe the decompress time I need isn't away from the individual things. Lily. The House. Job. Husband. It is the combination of them all. I need to learn to focus on one and not get overwhelmed with them all. As a new parents we all struggle with how to juggle our many responsibilities. I don't know if we ever learn how to get rid of the guilt and to manage to get it all done.

But we have got to try! So when I get home from now on I am Mom for at least an hour. Just Mom. Not maid, not chef, not auditor. Just Mom. The Mom that chases her little girl around the yard with a water hose, and reads the same Elmo book ten times in a row. Because this is her hour. No this is our hour and we can do whatever she wants to with that hour. And that is okay. Maybe then those thirty minutes of peace won't be longed for quite as much!