Mom Guilt!

I suffer from what I call "mom guilt" a lot these days. I let those little doubting voices creep in at the most inconvenient times and usually under unwarranted conditions. Take for example the past week. Thursday, in the midst of our normal early morning rush, the phone rings. Normally, I would just ignore it, but our phone never rings at 7:30 in the morning. I grabbed the phone and glanced down at the caller ID to find my daughter's school prominently displayed. YIKES! A million and one scenarios passed through my mind before I could even answer the phone. Luckily, none of the disasters I had envisioned were the reason for the call. But, a recorded message did informed me that due to the torrential downpours, the lower school had flooded and would be closed for the day. That was Thursday, today is Monday. The school is still struggling with the flood and I am still hanging out at work with my daughter. (Not sure if you can detect the change of tone in my voice, but believe me, it is there).

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE days off with my child. Snow days are a cause for celebration around our house. We pile up on the couch in our pj's and watch movies. We make soup and grill cheese sandwiches and take afternoon cat naps. The snow falls and melts all in one day and she goes back to school the next. In my Norman Rockwell mind, that is how we should always spend an unexpected day off from school. But not now. No. I am a working mom and I have "mom guilt" that we haven't had a chance to do any of that. Instead, I had to call in grandparent re-enforcement for Thursday, which made both the grandchild and grandmother more than happy. They lunched, shopped and napped. Friday, we packed a backpack full of books, movies and her DS and headed into the bakery where she spent the day fully content hanging out with me.

Monday rolls around, the school is still closed and we are at the bakery again. Only this time there is an added bonus....a friend! Lucky for us, my daughter has a friend whose mom works behind the bakery and guess what that mother and daughter were doing today......hanging out at work together! So, the girls have spent the day playing office and "working" in the bakery. They have decorated the bakery with pictures and eaten way too much icing. They made up dance routines that included dressing up in aprons and singing into spatulas. We ordered in for lunch and they even managed to get in a movie too. Basically, it was a play date at an unconventional location. And you know what? She loved it. All of it. She loved spending the day with her grandmother, she loved spending the day at the bakery with me and she loved spending the day with her friend no matter where they were.

My daughter just came in the room and asked if she has school tomorrow. I told her I had not heard and asked her why? Her response? "I just want to spend one more day at the bakery with you." I think I am done with my mom guilt.

-Kathleen