Enemy No. G

This might come as a surprise, but moms have many enemies. Don't believe me? In five seconds I can name this many: playground bullies, careless smokers, laundry, mosquitoes, high school boys who only want one thing, contagious negative self-image, and high fructose corn syrup, to name only a few. But I think there's only one enemy that beats us up everyday and almost effortlessly subdues us moms. I'd like to meet a mom, if there is one, who is immune to it or has a secret weapon against it. It's Guilt. It's got to be our most common and formidable foe.  Well, maybe Worry is it's evil twin, but I'm gonna try diplomacy with it for now. Ask me how that's going in ten years when Peyton notices boys who only want one thing, or in six years when she starts to fret about not having boobs yet, or maybe in three years when some first grader calls her a name. Sheesh. Maybe Worry is worth worrying about. But not today.

Today my satellite is hovering over over Enemy No. G, the one we mothers don't speak of. Monday was one of those self-inflicted cleaning days when I tell myself (aloud sometimes) that this is just my one day of the week when it is okay not to play with my children, because you can't skip laundry and cleaning forever. Can you see how Guilt already had an undertow there?  Apparently, Peyton shredded the memo about Mondays and seemed stubbornly determined to cling to me. All day on Monday she'd say: Mom, you wanna play with me? My reply was: Yes, when I'm done. To which she'd immediately retort: You wanna play with me noooowwww?"

Blake tried once to help. He said, "Peyton, do you want to wear paper towels from now on, because you might have to if you don't let Mom finish the laundry." She replied with a blank stare. I eventually just gave up and gave in and played "beach" with her. 

I'm not really driving at a great point here or trying to be overly dramatic about laundry. I'm more or less wracking my brain on why Guilt ate me alive on Monday. It's always there, I know that, but some battles are more stealth. This time Guilt wasn't even trying to be subtle. But I just hopped on the hot plate anyway. Guilt if we do, guilt if we don't. If we work, we constantly feel guilty about leaving our kids, and if we're home with our kids every day, then we feel guilty we're not teaching them a great moral or lecturing on good citizenship every second they're awake. I remember as a kid being made to stay out of the kitchen or outside because my mom or my aunt had stuff she had to do, probably laundry. I don't have any baggage about that from back then, so why am I creating my own baggage about it now? In fact, being kicked out of the house (translated: away from mom) just forced us to use our brains and figure out how to entertain ourselves, which seems like a splendid exercise in creative thinking now that I think about it.

Well, I'm starting to ramble, and I've probably lost you forever with all this crap I'm dishing out tonight. I'm just gonna remind myself of getting kicked out of the house, and then I'll feel better.