The Little One

The last several months have left me in a pool of guilt.  The little one has graduated preschool and will be going to all day kindergarten next fall.  My days of cuddling with her during the afternoon reading books and taking her to the zoo on field trips just because we can are coming to an end.  Yet, because of the house selling and the double moving this year, I did not get to savor every minute of the end of our time together.  Mother's feel guilty about everything, so you can imagine the depths of guilt I feel over wasting this big moment.

To make up for all of this, I have spent afternoons on the floor of her (now old) pink room playing critters and Barbies.  I have volunteered to be at every year end activity I could.  I took her out for countless lunches and bought her countless special surprises at the grocery store.  I did all sorts of things like this to lessen the guilt even though it caused me stress and panic as the move date approached.  Even now I will put off laundry or those last couple of boxes so that I can take her to the beach or read her a story.  

So without question, and despite my 7 mile "to-do" list, I volunteered to help out for two of the four VBS days.  I went all smiles and helped serve the snack each morning as her and Zach enjoyed their time learning about...umm, Jesus, I think (oh that VBS is so fun, they don't even know they are learning).  So the guilt trip she laid on me this week was a complete surprise.  It went a little something like this...

M: I cannot believe that I have worked so hard to learn all these VBS songs and you are going to make me sit at the boys lacrosse instead of preforming.  I mean, what was the point of learning them?

R: I am sorry I cannot be in three places at once.

M: It is so unfair that the boys always get to do their stuff and I can NEVER do what I want.  I mean, I worked so hard for this.  (this was after 1 day of VBS)

Then yesterday in our 75 minute drive to pick up Colin at his camp:

M:  I wish that I could get sick.  Not really sick, just a little sick...like a cold or something.  I mean I just don't feel very loved lately.

So much for all those little things I did to help with the guilt...that pool just became a lake!