Mom Guilt Has A Chokehold On My Brain

Let me set the mood for you…

We are on vacation with Alex’s family and it has been absolutely amazing so far. Redden has experienced so many firsts including the beach and ocean, so he has been having the time of his life. Not to mention the fact that his sister is here with us and he looks up to her and adores her so much. Alex and I have been getting along really well since being here, unless we are both overwhelmed, which is typical, but in the confinement of our own home…. well, we say what we want, talk to each other in a different way, I mean, you know how it goes.

Our room, we are sharing as a family so it is me, Alex, Redden and Mia all in a room together which has been way better than expected. The hardest part about sharing a room has been my anxiety about waking everyone up when Redden wakes up. Since being here, he has been waking up earlier, which I’m sure has a great deal to do with him being excited to wake up and play with everyone he doesn’t see on a daily basis.

Redden has been waking up between 5 AM and 6 AM. He would normally wake up around 8:30 AM at home. We are in a house with 10 people so I hate coming into the main room in the morning for a fear of waking everyone up early on their vacation. I really don’t mind that he is waking up that early because I basically wake up in 1 hour increments anyways, but it’s a different story when I could possibly affect other peoples sleep patterns.

Now, today has been one of those days where it is 9:30 AM and I’ve had two breakdowns already. In the room, crying because I’m frustrated with my son. He normally takes his first nap about 2 and a half hours after waking up in the morning. Today he woke up at 5 AM and I managed to keep him in bed and quiet until about 6:30. By this time, I know that Alex’s father is awake because he always wakes up super early so I’m more comfortable coming out of our room.

My son woke up ready to rumble this morning. He was wild, running around, throwing fits, screaming out of excitement and I was just not up for it. Let me also add that I have had a consistent headache for the past 3 or 4 days from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep.

So I’ve been more hostile than I’d like to be and had an attitude with my son. Of course, mom guilt is rampant while this is happening. Anyone else get mom guilt before it even kicks in how you’re acting?

As I said before, being here has been so amazing. I love spending time with Alex’s family. His mother and I get along so well and I love being able to spend more than just a few hours with them.

I can’t help but to beat myself up about the way I act while frustrated and overwhelmed. Especially when the actions are on display in front of the family. I know they understand, or I know Alex’s mother does at the very least.

I seem to get stuck in this cycle of being in the moment of overstimulation and realizing how I am acting and then having a quiet moment when I get fed up enough to walk away and realizing I should be more patient. Now, I also realize that this is a normal thing. All moms get to this point, or at least I like to believe that it’s normal.

No matter what, there will be times during motherhood where you feel like you’re just not doing a great job. You will feel as if you just can’t get it right. Like this just wasn’t meant to be. “I wish this wasn’t happening”, “I just need time to myself”, “I can’t handle this anymore”. But let’s take a step back and see how much the good outweighs the bad.

We have been here, in Georgia, since Saturday so we are halfway through and this is the first day that I have just been completely overwhelmed and wished away the behaviors I’m outpouring on my son and my boyfriends family. That’s a win in my book. The fact that I have been out of my own home and out of our routine and only gotten fed up enough to have a breakdown (or two, lets not emphasize it too much lol) in the span of almost a week makes me feel like maybe I’m not such a bad mom.

Look, basically what I want you to get out of this post is the fact that a bad day does not make you a bad parent. Everyone has bad days whether you have children or not.

It’s so easy for us to look back and dwell on how we act or how we can be perceived because of that one moment or those few outbursts. I want to try to remember all the good times before beating myself up about a few hours that happened in one single day. We aren’t perfect and we can’t expect ourselves to be. We aren’t the moms that we read these articles about where they’re perfectly happy all the time and how they do all these fantastic, over the rainbow things for their kids. And the main reason is because no one wants to write about how they are struggling today. No one really wants to show the people watching them that they are having two breakdowns within the span of 4 hours. But I want to tell you that everyone does it.

No matter how perfect you think you need to be 24/7, there are still lessons to be learned and amazing parenting moments to reflect on to get yourself out of that guilt funk so you can enjoy the rest of your day with your little ones.

Now go enjoy those babies!

No matter how perfect you think you need to be 24/7, there are still lessons to be learned and amazing parenting moments to reflect