Recently someone made a comment implying that I was a bad mom. Even though I laughed it off at the time, it stung a bit, obviously, as it’s still stuck to my sweater like a burr. At the party we were at a couple of weeks ago, a woman with three children asked me what I’d been up to lately, and I responded by telling her that work was a bit crazy, and I had a lot of club stuff going on, plus my new work with Mosaic Minds had me sweating an upcoming deadline. Her response: “When do you see your kids?!”
Excuse me?
So, because I have a busy, full life with lots of activity and self-fulfillment, that means I’m neglecting my kids. The worst part is my first, visceral, response was to think, When DO I see my kids? I already have my own thriving slimy pile of guilt over not spending enough time with my children, thanks very much for adding to it. But, since I’m well aware that I’d be doing them a disservice by being grumpy and depressed if I didn’t have a life, I figure that happy mom = happy kids. AND, since my kids seem to be particularly well-adjusted, well-behaved, smart and busy with their OWN activities, I know I’m not depriving them of much. But it still bothers me.
Actually, it’s not my kids I’m neglecting…it’s my house. And my mudbed garden. Cleaning is the lowest priority in my life right now. Thank god for 75-year-old mothers-in-law with cleaning fetishes, that’s all I have to say.
I was all kinds of accomplished this weekend, getting some cleaning done, polishing off AWC web and newsletter stuff, playing with my kids*, reducing my to-do list to mere rubble, and I even got my U.S. taxes done. They took 10 minutes. 10 minutes! Go, me. 🙂 And due to the exchange rate, I didn’t get as depressed over the amount in U.S. dollars that my salary represents even though it’s still ridiculously low.
We figured out the time period for our planned vacation in the States this summer, and I did some preliminary checking on the web for ticket prices. I need a travel agent!! Turns out this trip is much more complicated to plan that I’d expected, as there appear to be no direct flights from either Copenhagen or Amsterdam to Detroit (the cheapest versions had THREE connections, hello, I don’t think so) and cost upwards of 30,000 kronor. 🙁 Someone, please, start a price war on airline tickets!
Tonight is the AWC meeting. I’m going directly to Malmö after work, shopping for a raffle gift, and then having sushi before the board meeting. Yum. We’re playing games tonight because we have so many new members and want to give people a way to break the ice.
Martin’s Take on Daylight Savings Time: “It’s not bedtime as long as it’s light out!”
*So there! Take that! Pbbbb!