Ninety percent of the time, I’m a-okay about the working-mom thing: the juggles and demands, and the fact that I spend less time with the girls than I otherwise would. And, as I’ve written before, I don’t usually feel guilty about the choices I’ve made – with the exception being mornings like today.

At drop-off this morning, both girls were uncharacteristically clingy and sad to say good-bye to me. (“Why does Zoe have an unhappy face?”one of her classmates asked, as Zoe buried her head in my coat.) Zoe eventually let me go with a smile, but Avery was another story: She didn’t want me to leave and at one point handed me a book, asking with her big eyes for me to read it to her. The problem? I just didn’t have the time: I had a 10 AM work meeting to get to, and even a few extra minutes at the school would have made me late. I had to tell her no and hand her off to one of her teachers, who walked her to the window so they could wave to me, and I left the school with tears pooling in my eyes (not unlike I would do during her first few days at the school).

“I feel like such a bad mom,” I said to a friend walking out. “Don’t do that to yourself, she’s going to be fine,” she responded – and she was right. Both girls love school and were probably bouncing around, not thinking of me or our drop-off, minutes after I left them. But the thought of not being able to sit there with Avery for a few extra minutes (something I could do, say, on a Friday when I’m not working) was a difficult pill to swallow.

Here’s hoping for a better (guilt-free!) tomorrow.

-M

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 1:23 pm and is filed under 66.Two kids-January 12. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.