… my blog. Life has been running away from me. My food poisoning put me five days behind. But since my life is barely able to function in the time available, it is two weeks later and I’m still catching up. Of course, the day I got sick was the same day I launched the promo for my 8 Weeks program — great to get that off the ground, but that set in place a cascade of promotion, tasks, and projects that needed to be in place before this Tuesday, September 26th — the first week of Session A of the program. I’m still not finished with all of those tasks, and the perfectionist in me is very frustrated that I’m not completely ready for the first session — much less that I have not finished the promised Special Report to the early signups. As such, long-term goals like updating my blog regularly becomes low priority in a world of immediate deadlines. And to get all of this done, I am neglecting Gracie. Well, not really, Gracie’s fine — but I am not paying the level of attention that I think I should. She’s been watching enough Dora to not be paying much attention anymore, except for the random "map!" and "backpack!". One great side effect is that Gracie is playing more independently with her toys (and random objects grabbed from various drawers, shelves, and boxes in the house), making up little games and having discussions with her webble-wobbles about whether they are "okay." She picks up her weeble wooble and holds it to her face. Gracie: "Okay? Okay." Then she gives the weeble a hug and a kiss. Gracie: "Huh. Kie." The weeble allegedly returns the kiss. Gracie: "Aahh." Does it count that I am in the room when she is doing all these things? The "quantity" versus "quality" debate. But I really do both — I still hang out with her in her room, dancing (spinning while clapping or saying "wee!" with arms in the air) to her World Music CD, read her books, go the park — but I am not hanging out with her every second of the day. But I wouldn’t be doing that either if I was a stay at home mom — I would still have to run errands, do chores, and take care of family business. What is the standard? Where does this "should" come from? Some "perfect" mother who spends every moment of her day challenging her child with developmentally approrpriate toys and books (and who does not even own a TV)? Is that even possible? Do we even really want that? Shouldn’t our kids learn to play independently? Shouldn’t our kids learn that parents have lives too (and that even if our kids are our first priority, they are not our ONLY priority)? Then I wonder — is this really a good argument, or am I just making an excuse? Perhaps, though, the fact that I worry about this issue keeps it from being a problem — if I didn’t worry about it, that would be a red flag. When you give birth, instead of handouts on breastfeeding and diapering, they should give handouts on guilt. Much more applicable.
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I'm Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, a writer, teacher, and coach.