Guilt

Spring Break week and beyond feeling stressed out and terribly guilty, I can't think of a single emotion.
What a useless thing guilt is.  It wastes so much time and energy.
I feel like I should be providing a three-ring circus of fun for my kids this week, that it is my responsibility that they are having a constant good time with smiles on their faces.  Their friends all seem to be on a beach or a ski hill, or on a fun family activity.  We have gone to Target, out to lunch for hot dogs, to the doctor for check ups, and to therapy.  Yep, that's it!  So now the guilt.  But then I was talking to my dear friend and she was leaving town for three days with her sister.  My other wonderful friend had her husband pick up her three kids early one night for dinner out and a movie and she sat and read.  I would never even think f asking for this or leaving town for time to myself.  And why the hell not?  I have no idea.  Instead I spend every waking and sleeping minute with my kids until I start to resent them and feel irritated every time they ask me something.  I swear I would change if I had any idea how to do it, but I don't.

This morning I just want to move slow and have them stay in jammies and play without fighting.
I was just sitting here thinking about what I did with them for Spring Break when they were smaller, and I cannot remember a single thing.  That goes for when I was younger too.  So why is it so important.  Maybe in the back of my mind I think they are going to go back to school and find out everyone had fun and they were stuck with a crabby stressed out Mom.  But really, I doubt it.

My friend told me she thinks of it as her Spring Break too.  Her break from making lunches, shuttling everyone around, getting dressed, keeping the house picked up.  That made sense.  I not only wasted their whole break but mine as well.  So I start today, the Friday before they go back to school.  I am going to take it slow, if only just today, and try and regroup.

Patty