Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Guilt Button - Poke.

Yesterday, I wasn't really home. I was at work and then I had a meeting with a new personal trainer at 1 p.m. I got X-man off the bus and talked to him about his day. Then I went to the hematologist at 3:45 p.m. Then I went home and did some dishes and prepared for my Library Board of Directors Meeting which went from 6-7 p.m. Then I stopped by Wal-mart to pick up an iPod speaker system for $18 and some balloons for my class today. I got home, I read X-man some books and tucked him in.

Today... was a similarly scheduled day. I was at work until 1:30. I came home and ate lunch and spent an hour figuring out how to create a private web site for the Clownfish parents to go to for updates. I finished writing the letter, but not the e-mail to send to the parents to tell them how to access it. I got X-man off the bus and then I got a great surprise from my neighbor up the street who is going to the Sara Bareilles concert with me in October. She dropped by to pay me for the tickets and pick her tickets up. Her son J-awesome and X-man played on the computer while we chatted. I love her. Seriously. Not just because she makes the most smooth-tastic margaritas, either.

After they left, X-man had his snack and did his homework and we chatted about his day. I worked some more on the e-mail and then finally started entering my students' parents' phone numbers and e-mails into my phone, so I could send them adorable pics while things were happening. I looked up and it was 5 p.m. I started to make myself dinner. Then I was going to go meet KTDID at BW3 with her cousin and friends for a Diet Coke at 6:30 p.m. But at 5:45 p.m., X-man laid it on thick.

"Mommy, I haven't seen you too much these two days. You're always working."

Sigh. I explained that I had some things I wanted to do for the parents of my students.

He sighed. "I want you to play Legos with me."

And I swear, if I had had any energy to play freaking Legos I would have. Instead, he settled for me reading him four books from the library. After I recorded them on his reading log for school, I realized there was no way, I was going to want to drive 1 mile to the restaurant. Instead, I went upstairs to go to sleep. My son followed me. My dog followed me.

We ended up a pile of tiredness on my bed, until I slowly rose at 7:30 p.m. to run X-man's bath. He was in it for 30 minutes while I played on facebook and tried to read (but I kept shutting my eyes). He got out and I heard him shouting at MacTroll about whatever it was he was reading.

I went in the room to find him using one of the basic sight word books with MacTroll. "No way, José!" I made him put the small book back (12 words total max), and pulled out a new book from the library about a birthday pedal car that looks a lot like X-man's red pedal car that he inherited from the Freak family at our last swap.

He made it six pages, and claimed he was too tired, so we shut the book for a while and I left. I'm totally feeling the Mom guilt. Because the truth is, I used all my energy playing with other people's children today. And play we did. Then I wrote about all the play we did and uploaded photos and movies for the parents to look at.

And now I'm just pooped.

The plan is to make it to a new fitness class early in the a.m. at the Rec Center. We'll see if that happens. I'm doing okay getting out of bed at 6:10 a.m. each day. Not sure if I want to push my luck for 5:45 a.m.

I'm going to be a mess when it's dark outside!

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