A wise woman recently said to me, "When you become a mother, you give birth not only to a son or daughter, but also to a whole load of guilt." A truer word was never spoken.
Take now, for example. I'm writing this over a decaff in a coffee bar, having recently dropped the Littlest Cat off at nursery for the day. How many things in that sentence do I feel guilty about? Let's take them one by one.
1). The big and obvious one - my boy is in nursery. Why don't I have the money or the budgeting ability to be able to take a year off work? Why am I paying other people to look after my son?
2). I'm actually only writing this because I felt guilty about not having updated properly in a while. I really want to be playing Candy Crush Saga.
3). I put sugar in my coffee AGAIN. I think my days of taking sweetener are past. My waistline shows it but I don't care enough to stop eating or start exercising. It's not like I want a sex life - another source of guilt.
4). I shouldn't be sitting in a café at all. I have a million and one things to do before returning to work on Wednesday.
Which leads me nicely into...
5). Am I selfish for going back on nights? I'll see more of Dom, but Mat will have to start doing night feeds for 3 nights a week. LC, with impeccable timing, has gone from sleeping 9 hours, having a quick feed, and sleeping another 3, to waking up every 2 - 3 hours. So I feel guilty that Mat will be knackered in work, all because I can't budget enough to work part time hours during business hours and lose the night bonus. See how seamlessly that flowed back to 1)?
There is a surprise extra. Bring on 6) - I feel guilty because I'm sitting on my arse, sipping coffee and faffing about on my phone. And I'm enjoying it. I'm not sobbing for the Littlest Cat like I did last Monday morning. I'm relaxing and being silent and NOT singing "I Know a Teddy Bear" as I scald the mouth off myself gulping my coffee before the inevitable meltdown that follows the pram stopping for more than 30 seconds.
Guilty pleasure? Hell yeah.
