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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Big Time Mommy Guilt

Late last night the Big Giraffe mentioned to me that he had given the cats the last of their food that morning. He offered to go out and get more. Since he was trying to pack for a business trip and get some other things together, I said if he could get it would be great, but if he couldn't not to worry about it. Then I went to bed. Since I didn't hear anything else about it, I was very surprised this morning when he mentioned that the cats hadn't eaten. "But you said not to worry about!"

Yeah, yeah I know. He then replied, "But really I should have gone and gotten the cat food since you'll now have to take the kids." Uh, yeah? ( Envision Elle Wood's voice from Legally Blond. ) He knows me so well. There's was nothing we could do about it though so I made a mental note to pick up cat food this afternoon. Apparently that mental note went straight into the mental garbage can.

At dinner time this evening, while, my husband was boarding his plane and I began solo parenting (alright really I had been doing it all day, but it's different if you know that your husband is at least in the same state as you) I suddenly realized I had never picked up the cat food. Rats! The kids were cranky and it was raining. However, the cats needed to eat and in addition to loving my cats dearly and wanting to take excellent care of them, selfishly I didn't want to sleep in cat pee tonight when two angry cats decided to rightfully protest. Call me crazy. I told the boys I just needed to use the bathroom and then we would leave for the store.

However, for reasons I don't understand, my older son (OS) thinks it's hilarious to push on the bathroom door as I'm trying to close it. This time though, his thumb got caught. He let out a piercing shriek. I looked at his thumb and wondered why it looked like he had grated cheese on his thumb. That I almost let out a shriek as I realized it was his skin. He had scraped up his thumb so that it literally was a bloody mess. However, not so bad that we needed to go the the ER. I did give my favorite ER doctor a call though: my dad. He told me to bandage it and put ice on it. He also had me give OS Tylenol. The skin beneath the nail was already starting to bruise.

After OS was calm I felt a huge sense of guilt. I had been solo parenting for approximately 10 minutes and already an accident had occurred! I kept on thinking about what Sally HP told me yesterday about being a SAHM: her job is to pay the bills and make sure her kids don't die. When she said this I burst out laughing because first of all it's true, but second it was just so funny the way she said it. Obviously, OS just has a few scrapes and a bruise, but I wasn't feeling so good about fullfilling my job as a SAHM. OS was in a lot of pain and I still had the cats to feed! How did I go from being so organized this morning (dinner in the crockpot at 8 am) to this? There's just no way I could wait until tomorrow to get the cat food. I seriously contemplated calling the head of our Helping Hands for my moms group. I can't imagine how that email would have looked: "Member has an emergency need for weight management dry cat food. Purina from grocery store will be fine."

Fortunately, OS began to feel better and after bribing him with new band-aids, he and my younger son (YS) agreed to a short grocery store trip. Brief it was. We left with the cat food, a few items we were running low on, a new box of band-aids, two toys from the clearance section and guilt medicine a bag of miniature Snickers for me. Thankfully the Big Giraffe will be home soon!

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Mommy guilt hurts more than fingers caught in the door.

Labels:

posted by Alex Elliot @ 6:34 PM   5 comments
5 Comments:

  • At 10/21/2008 7:57 PM, Blogger Heather said…

    I hear ya. Some days are just craptastic like that eh?

     

  • At 10/22/2008 4:32 AM, Blogger Goofball said…

    ouchhhhhh on the thumb

    glad the cats got their food though ;)

     

  • At 10/22/2008 10:02 AM, Blogger skiplovey said…

    Ugh I hate solo parenting. Sounds like everything worked out in the end though, especially the snickers ; )

     

  • At 10/22/2008 1:01 PM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    There are many times when Tycho the rabbit had human cereal for breakfast because I forgot to get more veggies for him. He loves it, though.

    Glad OS is feeling better and your crappy day is over.

    And THANK you a millions times for the help with google reader!

     

  • At 10/23/2008 7:15 PM, Blogger bethandrobert said…

    Mommy guilt was something they never tell you about before you have kids. At least that's how I felt when I first experienced it.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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