proceed with caution... {just a bit of bellyachin'}

Busy weekend.

Thursday night Homecoming parade.  Friday night Homecoming game...we won...go cards!  Saturday morning Third grade football...we lost...but not by much.  Saturday afternoon cub scout family camp out...one word...brrrr!...but fun anyway!

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend.  Work tomorrow.  Loads of laundry.  Need to grocery shop.

My life.

This feeling of constant running...not enough time to finish what needs to get done...this is what has me questioning, wondering...soul searching.

I don't even know how to express myself.  My thoughts are swirling around in my brain...I don't want to complain but...well, I am.

I love my job.  I really do.  I love to visit with people, I love to care for people.  I love my boss.  I'm so blessed to work for a man who understands the demands that working mothers deal with.  If my kids are sick, if the weather is bad, if the kids have programs or field trips...no problem...I can take the time.  I know that is rare...I appreciate it, I do.

But.

If I think back...way back...what I've always wanted to be is a Mom.  It's where my passion is...caring for my family...organizing our lives...creating a home for them.  And, I cannot do it all.  Even with Fridays off.  I know...how ridiculous...I have a three day weekend and it's not enough.  Do you detect my sarcasm?  While I recognize how blessed I am, caring for a family is a full-time job...at least at the level that I would like to do it.  Having a home life that is scattered, hairy, stressful...it is not what I aspire to.  To be the Mother and wife I want to be takes work...it could be my full-time job.  So, a few Fridays ago, after dropping the boys at school, Eden and I came home to clean bathrooms and do some laundry.  I also stripped the boys sheets and put on fresh ones.  That is the extent of what I got done on Friday.  I still had to finish laundry, clean the rest of the house, pay bills, meal plan,  grocery shop...

Our entire weekends are chewed up with work...that is if  I care for our lives to run smoothly the rest of the week.  If I want to provide the kind of home life that I want for my children and husband...which I do.  And then when our schedule is like this past weekend, forget it, none of it gets done.  So it's all work or all "play"...why can't I ever get it all done?

So for weeks I've been in this funk of sorts.  Mad at myself for not being able to do it all, but at the same time telling myself I'm crazy to think I could.  Then the guilt...that I'm not being a good enough, reliable enough employee.  That I'm so stressed from running that I don't have the patience I should with my children or the time for my husband.  Ugh...this could go on and on...

Then I read this post from Clover Lane and it got my undies in a big bunch!  I had been forewarned by my BFF so I wasn't completely caught off guard but it just...I don't know...rubbed me wrong.  I work so hard to do the best job as a mother in spite of having to work outside of the home.  I want so badly to be home.  Then I'm feeling so judged by someone who is lucky enough to be able to stay at home.  I know that Sarah from Clover Lane probably wasn't directing her statements towards moms like me, but...it still stung.

Every family is different.  Every situation is different.  I have it a lot better than a lot of other working Moms...some have it better than me.  Some stay at homes waste their opportunity...some do it just the way I wish I could, then judge me.  Whatever.

I've decided to view my situation as blessed.  I'm lucky to have a wonderful boss, and a career caring for some really wonderful patients.  I'm lucky to be able to work part-timish and that I have parents to help me with child-care.  I'm lucky to have a hands-on husband who helps out quite a bit.  I'm lucky to have children who are sweet and beautiful, kind and smart, who can read between the crazy {I hope} and know how much their mother loves them...always.