How Baby

A three-year-old made me cry today. How was your day?

Like a lot of people who work from home, I have some trouble balancing ‘work time’ and ‘family time’.  Freelancing for me has been a series of lulls interspersed with periods of INTENSE workloads, and there are many weeks like this one, where it’s basically ‘Daniel, take the wheel!’

Momo’s started making offhand comments like ‘I’m at daycare all the time!’ which,  I mean, fair, four days in a row is a long time when you’re three, and she’s trying to make sense of this whole ‘time’ thing. But then I think about how we’re probably only going to be able to afford to have one kid, and how fast she’s growing out of the time in her life where we’re the centre of her world, and I just wanted to spend some time with her after a long week where it felt like I didn’t get to see her a lot, and… yeah. I got this. And I’m usually pretty immune to the whole ‘working mom’ guilt thing, but it got me.

It feels like I’m being a real shit mom these days, in the ways that really count. Like, we don’t have a lot, but we have our health and our time together and it feels like I’m wasting both by riding the highs of the “intense” periods, choosing to work more than I would at a day job. A lot of things are just reminding me that she really needs me to be present now, more than she did when she was a baby, and I constantly feel like I’m screwing it up. When is it going to be too late to show her that I love her and want to be around her more?