Mommy Guilt

People have probably heard the term mommy guilt. We all know what that is... Am I raising my child right? Do I spend enough quality time with him? How could I have sent her to her room? Man, I really yelled at him at dinner. There are some people who have come a long way in their understanding of autism. If I share a quick story about An Hour in the Life of the Meltdown City Queen, most get it. And having kids is exhausting period. I share that exhaustion. I also recognize the amount of time and effort I put into just one kid (and I have two!). Because of that, I feel guilty about a lot of things... And here they are.

#1: My son does not get the nurturing and attention he needs, wants or deserves. He often has to sit and wait. Even when he has what he believes is an urgent request/question/comment about something. I'm sure he wonders why he is disciplined for some things that his sister is not. He gets interrupted. He's usually second. He has to change the way he plays, his noise level, where he sits, what television shows he watches and what order he does things in. He's a very accommodating kid and I'm hoping that he will grow up not feeling resentful or letting people walk all over him, but that he will continue to advocate for his sister and model how to be sensitive to other people's needs. I am very conscious of this guilt and lately have worked on ensuring that he gets one on one time with both mommy and daddy - together and separately. Even if it's just a car ride from daycare for ten minutes with one of us -- we try to make the best of it and give him our full attention.

#2: I would like to spend more time with friends and family. My dad, for one, lives about 40 minutes away, which is not far but for a handful of reasons we never see each other. Jamie and I work full time Monday to Friday during the school year and drive the kids around to sports some evenings. Most evenings it looks almost like the typical young family... Kids get home, unpack backpacks, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, kids shower, read books and go to bed. You might add a few meltdowns, refusals to eat dinner (from either child), two scheduled fifteen minute bathroom breaks with incentives and rewards, make sure you use the right words at all times, prepare child for transitions with countdowns and incentives, follow the predictable routine, clean a couple of pairs of dirty underwear, and a break up couple of sibling-scraps. Straying from our nightly routine adds to the meltdowns, the accidents and the night terrors. Not to mention that for Sienna, after a long day at a school, a 40 minute car ride times two with an outing in a different environment, life becomes overwhelming. Hence, we can't visit anyone during the week. Not right now (I predict and hope that sometime in the future it will be much easier). Even a visit from someone to our house through the week, gramps or not, is sketchy. Then we do things out of order or we skip bath or we go to bed late. Disaster. About the friends... Life is different for us than it is for our friends and their typical families. I'll be blunt and to the point. Our friendship checklist has changed in the last few years. We have to be around people who are patient. All of our friends are sensitive but they have to know what they're getting into when our whole family comes over for dinner or shares an outing. And it takes a great deal of patience.

#3: I would like to spend more quality time with Jamie. Without the kids. Without the challenges of parenting two completely different kids two completely different ways. We spend so much time trying to do the same thing, say the same thing, respond the same way, stick to the routine, follow the expected order of things... that there are very few times that we can just have a conversation. Even five minutes. It never fails that someone needs their hot chocolate right now or ding-ding-ding it's time to take a kid to the bathroom. And by the end of the night I'm pretty much done with the spoken language. I'm ready to zombie out and watch the next episode of Game of Thrones and I'm sure Jamie feels the same way.

#4: I'd like Sienna to have play dates with children in her class. I'm seriously lacking energy here. I'm thinking her little cutesy little friends are having play dates while she's not. I could be wrong. It's an important part of her development however. The more exposure she can have to guided play with peers, the better. School play is just not enough. How do I explain all the quirks and reactions she may have, how to prepare her for transitions, things that might cause her anxiety, what to do in a meltdown situation, and how to toilet her whe she's over to have play time? I just don't have the energy and I don't know who would take all that on. Well... That's a lie. We do have one friend who knows Sienna well and we feel very comfortable having her go over for a few hours to play with her same-aged daughter because she provided child care for us for the last year before kindergarten. It's challenging to have kids over here but is probably the easiest solution. I would likely have to guide the play, plan some specific structured activities, and stay closeby to help out with the social skills so they'll want to come back again. It would be best to have her brother be elsewhere. He is a great player but to have him at home when there's another kid here can disrupt the purpose of the play date. He doesn't get in the way for the most part but the extra person/ noise/ negotiating adds to Sienna's stress sometimes. Plus, he's very social and would take over in that department.

I think that's all for now. Just plain old mommy guilt. I had it when my kids were babies and I'll have it when they're paying for their post-secondary educations! I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this one.