Some thoughts...

I'm having a little personal struggle right now within myself, and I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that I'm feeling a little imbalanced lately.

Lily is getting to an age where she is exploring and discovering, and it feels like you can literally watch the growth happening within her each day. I'm really enjoying this phase of her development, and I guess that I'm feeling guilty about not being able to spend more time with her than a couple hours (if that) at night and on weekends. I will be honest that this is probably the first time that I have really felt this way. I enjoyed Lily as an infant, but having her at school and on a schedule did wonders for me feeling human again after the haze of the first few months. But now there are things that I would really like to do with her, and I'd like to feel more like her primary caregiver than the evening and weekend mom. Part of these feelings stem from the fact that cutsie programs designed for mother and child bonding are completely tailored to stay-at-home moms, making us working moms feel even more like an inferior class. There are a ton of cool and fun programs, like read-alongs, sing-alongs, sign language classes (and list goes on and on) that happen from 9:00 am - 5:00 pm during weekdays. Fantastic for those great, involved stay-at-home moms; too bad for you poor working moms. The really ironic thing is that if I were a stay-at-home mom, I couldn't afford to do these programs anyway! So it is a select group that are able to partake in these lovely programs, and I suppose I'm just a little bitter that I'm not afforded the same privilege. So, I've said my bit.

The other thing that I was noticing today is that every day I have Lily completely put together from head to toe; everything coordinates perfectly from the hair bow to the shoes. Yet I wear the same 4 pairs of pants and 2 pairs of shoes every week with holey socks that don't match, and on most days, I look like I could have just rolled out of bed. Clearly, something is wrong with this picture.

I also spend a considerable amount of time pouring over any potential stain on Lily's clothes, making sure that they stay looking great (or like a toddler has not been wearing them). Yet Lily will smear bananas all over my jacket before work, and I think "hey, not so bad, that kind of coordinates with the half-eaten Cheerios she just wiped on my pants".

Furthermore, she has about the best diet anyone could have, not only hitting all the food groups, but getting the full spectrum of colors for fruits/vegetables every day. Everything for her is organic, proportionate, healthy, etc. Yet I'm grabbing a half-slice of cold pizza for breakfast and whatever microwave meal cooks the fastest for lunch.

I suppose that part of it is that I after I get finished doing all the things that I feel compelled to do (and truthfully want to do) for Lily, I just don't have any energy left over for me. And, I suppose that I've just described a vast majority of mothers: kids first, you second. I'm not really looking to rearrange the order there, but just maybe shorten the vast gap that currently exists between her needs and my own. This is one of the many things that I will be working on this year. Maybe it's because it's January and I feel the need to confess my sins of the past year and resolve to do better this year, or maybe it's because I'm getting ready to turn 30 in a couple months, but I'm feeling the need to rearrange, restructure, get back in control, and just feel more balanced.