The Evil Momma

These last few weeks have been hard on me what with going back to work and everything that a new job entails. Add into that a part-time job that I have been working from home and a kid that never, ever sleeps, I have had a pretty rough go of it as of late. (Not to complain though, I know how blessed I am to have a job, more now than ever.)

Everything boiled to a head this evening as I tried, once again, unsuccessfully to get Z into her bed at a decent hour.

"I want my old momma back.", she wailed. "This job has made you evil, you are not my momma anymore - where is the old momma, the one who loved me?"

Wham! Hello, guilt, where have you been all this time? Could you maybe not shatter my heart into a million pieces?

I sat down with her, listened as she cried and stuttered and told me how she was feeling.

"Y-y-you (gasp) never play with me anymore. Y-y-you are always grumpy. W-w-when I fall asleep - you aren't here when I wake up.", she told me through broken sobs.

She feels like the job has cast an evil spell on me and that I am not the same person. That she misses when I was home with her all of the time and could play and read and do all of the things that we used to do.

Of course, once she had settled down I look up Child Abandonment symptoms and sure enough, my kid is showing all of the early symptoms - acting out, not sleeping, not eating, whining (of course, all of these could just be her being 3). The guilt tells me that I am a bad mother.

Tomorrow night?

Tomorrow night, I am turning off the phone and computer. Tomorrow night, I have a tea party with a princess to attend - because she is more important than the work, more important than the rat race, more important than the laundry that is piled on the floor (we have a bagillion laundry baskets and a hamper in every room, why are my clothes the only ones that can make it in there?).

She is the reason that I am working so hard, but she will never know it if all she sees is the evil momma.