mommy guilt 101

can you believe i made it over seven months without heaping large amounts of mommy guilt coals on my head? neither can i . . .

i experienced true mommy guilt this weekend. seven-month-old lukas came down with a cold at the beginning of last week. no big deal. he sniffed and we wiped for several days. and saturday, the nasties moved into his teeny tiny little chest. michael, ever the valiant daddy, stayed home from a party he really wanted to attend so that lukie could sleep, hoping when we woke up on sunday, his cold would have magically evaporated during the night, floating away on the scent of vicks vapor rub.

alas, sunday things seemed to be worse. however, we both had to be at church on sunday (i for a work meeting and michael to teach). i could have cancelled my meeting. i should have cancelled my meeting. but, i didn't. so we packed up luke and he visited our class at church. he made it through class and snuggled with daddy while i had a brief meeting. when we got home he slept a deep sleep.

only after we realized he was running the first fever of his little life. my poor baby!

we visited our bestfriend the pediatrician this morning. a double ear infection and one prescription for tasty orange medicine later, we were home and lukie is on the mend. still, if only i had skipped church yesterday . . .

but, it was my birthday and i wanted the day to go according to my plans. one of the most difficult realizations of motherhood is my selfishness. it's really difficult to remember that life is no longer about me. as another katherine has said, it's time to move at the "speed of the children." [i tried to find her specific post on her blog because it was really convicting to me, but i was coming up on dead ends.] time to slow down. time to live life at luke's speed and pace.

i'm sure this won't be the last of the mommy-guilt. and i do know that luke's 99.5-degree fever really wasn't a true crisis. but, it's a reminder to take my role seriously, and to move at the speed of the little ones.