Mom Guilt

Don't you just hate mom guilt? It is never logical and it surely wasn't today. I got up early to get a jump start. Had some breakfast, okay it was a piece of Aunt Peggy's pound cake, but it was breakfast. Then I painted Natalie's bathroom pink. It has always been a fine shade of tan but she wanted pink and, by cracky, it's PINK now. So, I did something for her today. Keep that in mind. Then, I went right to work on a Halloween quilt/wall hanging. Andy loves Halloween so that was something I was doing for him. Okay, that is a stretch, but still, he has asked for it to be left to him. So, two of my children had difficult projects done on their behalf, all before lunch today. However...today isn't any ole day. Today is the last. day. of. summer. vacation. So my husband calls to see what I have decided to do on this most special of days. Even though he heard about both of the above projects he was unimpressed and didn't see any real benefit for the children. That was annoying enough, but then he goes on to suggest I take them to the local state park to swim in. the. LAKE. Eh.



Lakes. Hmmm. Let's see....I am NOT a lake person. Not at all, not in the least. Do NOT see the appeal of getting wet in a lake. So sue me, I just don't get lakes. I don't want to wade into a slimy bottomed lake! I get the whole scenery thing, to a degree. And, if I had to pick between two home sites I'd pick the one with a lake view. I'm not opposed to looking out and seeing one, I just choose not to wade out and swim in it. And I know not all lakes are slimy bottomed. I am sure the one you are thinking of right now isn't. But it is my perception and I am sticking to it.



So I stewed about whether to ruin my children's lives by having them miss out on this opportunity. Knowing Robbie was going to be hurt on their behalf because they didn't get to go wade in a lake. And then the Halloween pattern I was working on got to be exponentially harder than I had anticipated. And then I decided to poll the children to see if they were even interested in doing such a thing. Two were for it, one against.



The two who were for it immediately ran for their swimsuits. I knew I was sunk. I grabbed a sandwich and put my suit on too - as I prayed I wouldn't have to get it wet. Then I got really cranky. This was such an impromptu, illogical, unnecessary intrusion on my day. Yes, I love my children. Yes, I always want them to have fun. No, lounging around the house for ONCE does not sound like Chinese water torture. Uggh.



Let's recap the summer, folks. Key and Andy get DSi XL's for Key's birthday and we added WiFi to our house so they could get on line. Natalie has a princess party one week before we leave for FL. We stay in FL, on vacation, for a MONTH. See post below to even begin to describe the things we did there. We've been swimming with friends multiple times upon our return. Just yesterday I took them to Gatti Town for lunch where they rode bumper cars and the Merry Go Round. Last week was spent with their relatives in Hartsville and Camden. That alone would have made it a good summer. They've seen Toy Story 3, Despicable Me and The Last Airbender. They've BTDT all summer long. Anyway, you get it.



So, what did we all do today but go to the state park. Key refuses to get in, wouldn't even put on his swim suit. Nat and Andy go for it, but Andy bails pretty early. Key begs to ride the paddle boats. We suit up in stinky life vests and climb onto an impossibly hot boat. I was, of course, the only one who had legs that would reach the pedals. So for 30 minutes I paddled the three of them around the lake. We saw two turtles who, upon seeing us, bailed from their downed tree trunks. Other than that excitement, they were completely unimpressed with my tour.

Back to the beach (I use the term lightly) for more lake fun. Natalie made friends with two other little girls so they had fun together for a while. And their bathing suits all matched. Wait, no, they didn't. They just all looked like they matched because they were all lake stained by then.

The point of the story is this: Mom guilt will make you do some really dumb things. The end.