Mama-guilt

So yeah, I have three kids. And I am a full time student. And I work parttime. And I have a husband. So all of these things.

I let my house slide. SERIOUSLY let it slide. For a while last year the house was on the market so I had to keep it pretty clean all the time. Then in November the listing expired and it was finals time and life intervened and the house went downhill.

This semester I have been asking more of my husband. Like asking him to help with the bathrooms on the weekends. I figure he uses the bathroom too, and the three rugrats using the bathrooms ARE his kids as well, and he can help out. So he kinda took over. This semester I have 2 night classes - so he gets the kids from school Monday and Tuesday nights, cooks dinner for them, and puts them to bed while I am at school. He has lately gotten to cleaning the whole house on Monday and Tuesdays. It is awesome. But of course I feel guilty that he is doing so much. He helps them with their homework, too. Now they come to him with problems, not always necessarily me. It makes me sad.

I try to tell myself that I took 10 years to take care of them. I stayed home with them, I changed their diapers, I breastfed them. I made so many sacrifices of who I am to take care of my babies, and I loved every minute (okay maybe not EVERY minute). Now that they are getting older they can survive without their Mama every second of every day, right? But the Mama-guilt is here and it is strong. I still spend a lot of time with my girlies, and I try to make the time we spend together GOOD time- quality time, but of course it is nowhere near as much when I was staying home. When I was staying home I cooked REAL food - where the meat started out as raw meat and I added ingredients and it ended up being cooked into a meal. . . .Now it is frozen food, pasta and lots and lots of eating out. And I feel guilty about this.

I feel guilty about pursuing MY dream at their expense. I know in my head that my girls having a closer relationship with their father is a GOOD thing for them. They have 2 parents that love them and that is a blessing. They have food to eat and clothes to wear and it doesn't really matter which parent washed and folded those clothes. I know that my sweet husband is completely capable of taking care of those sweet girlies. Becoming a doctor is MY dream, not theirs, not Jimmy's. This is about ME. And I feel selfish for pursuing my dream, even though in the end it will affect all of their lives, hopefully for the better.

I am proud of the hard work that I have done. I am proud of the work I do; proud of my job at Pinelake, proud of my girls, and my relationships with my husband and my friends. I juggle so many things and i am proud of that.

Today has been a Mama-guilt kind of day. Julie threw up this morning and i had a test in my 9:30 class, so Jimmy stayed home from work to take care of her. Very sad and hard for me to accept that I am not parent #1 anymore. :(