The Bottomless Bag of Guilt

Before Braeden was born, I never felt guilty for doing things that I wanted to do. If I wanted to go out one night, I would. If I wanted do absolutely nothing...that's exactly what I did. Now that I'm a mom, I find it difficult to think of a moment where I haven't felt guilty.

This notion of always feeling guilt came up again last night. Here I am trying to do my nightly pilates. I certainly don't have time to go to a gym everyday with three kids, so I try and do what I can at home. Plus, the kids love to join in. Braeden and Brock were fighting like crazy. I just couldn't take the bickering anymore so instead of letting them do pilates too, they were sent to their rooms (big punishment as they're rooms have a tons of stuff for them to play with). So, I have them occupied. Little Braxden stayed with me in the living room as I'm doing my workout, and he refuses to stop crawling all over me. Here I am trying to do leg lifts with a 20 pound baby using my knee leaning stool. After several attempts to have him lean on something else, I finally cracked and picked him up and put him on the other side of the room. I then resumed my leg lifts.

How dumb is this...he was simply trying to be involved and be close to me and Braeden and Brock were simply trying to participate in pilates with me. And here I am, trying to find peace and do my own thing when I should be playing with them.

No matter what I'm doing, I always tend to find ways to feel guilty about it. No one ever told me that with motherhood came with a bottomless bag of guilt.

Leaving Stress at the Door

I've always heard moms say that balancing work and home is a struggle. For me, I definitely walk a tightrope. Working for me has never been a choice. I never imagined that I wouldn't work. I idolize those moms that get to stay home...how lucky are they!! While I would adore staying with my kids everyday, that dream is simply not a possibility. I've come to accept this fact and don't struggle with this aspect. I do, however, participate in a daily tug-of-war over work-related stress.

How do working moms leave their stress at the door and come home refreshed? There has been many times where I catch myself bringing these frustrations home. When I do notice that I'm doing this, I try very hard to stop, but it's not always that easy. Braeden is four now and I would have thought that I would have this figured out by now.

I'm certainly not the first mom to arrive at this dilemma. All I can do it hope to pick up a few tricks from the moms that I admire, and keep trying to not bring work home with me.

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog. My husband and I had a blog as we were moving through the process on adopting our youngest son. Now that he's finally home, we wanted to start blogging about the situations that we encounter as we raise our three beautiful children.

We are the luckiest people in the world to have been blessed with such amazing kids! Braeden, our daughter, just turn four. Our oldest son, Brock, just turned three. And our little baby, Braxden, will be one in a few months.

We are just beginning to discover the challenges of raising three kids. And even though the are babies, they're already starting to team up against one another. For example, the other day, Brock and Braxden had Braeden pinned on the floor and both of them were pulling her hair. I told her that she needs to establish her authority over her two little brothers right now, and she can't let them team up on her.

But she and Braxden are a lot alike. The two of them are very low key where Brock is more demanding. Yet, Brock is the one who enjoys cuddling and hugs and kisses more so than the other two. It amazes me how their personalities are so different even though the three of them are so close in age and do everything together.

Anyhow, welcome to our adventure!