Working guilt

I tell you what else I was thinking about.....

I was wondering, while lying in bed neglecting my kids (ie letting my husband look after them - not saying that he would say I was neglecting them but that's how your brain works sometimes as a mum - guilt-centric), will my kids grow up and not feel that I did enough with them.

Obviously I do play with them and I love spending time with them (sometimes - sorry, I have to be honest), but I'm working full time which means we get up at 6am - when one of them, usually the 4 year old boy, comes and wakes us up. We get him to go back to his room with either an iPad or iPhone so we can have another half hour. At 6.30-6.45am, my husband goes and makes them breakfast and they eat it in their room usually, unless they follow him downstairs. Sometimes he brings me a cup of tea too. He's nice like that. Then I drag myself out of bed and get in the shower and get ready. My husband wrestles the children into clothes and then gets teeth brushed and shoes on etc while I'm getting dressed and putting makeup on. Sometimes I'll drive them to their various places (nursery 1 or 2 / childminder 1 or 2) or sometimes my husband does it and then I can leave the house and go straight to work (I have to drive about 50 minutes to get to work - and if I have to drop either of the kids at the place that is the other side of town it will take me an hour as I'll need an extra 10 minutes to get through town traffic. Either way, the time I spend with them in the morning is 10 minutes while they jump up and down on the bed while hubby makes breakfast and the 10-15 minutes that I'm driving them wherever they are going unless hubby is doing it in which case I don't even spend that time with them.

In the evenings, I usually pick them up (at 6pm) as hubby doesn't finish work until 6pm (he does work from home so this is quite convenient) and then once home I chill out with them until bedtime when hubby usually puts them to bed. I'll help if they are being particularly difficult.

Weekends I usually have a lie in on Saturday morning until 10am.

Today my son was driving me crazy. I guess cos I haven't been feeling 100% well and he seemed to be extra loud and full of energy it just got to me but as soon as I lay down for a (much needed) nap, the cogs started turning and I started to feel incredibly guilty.

The thing is I'm actually really happy. I don't like the commute and the job is not busy enough for me right now but its the run up to Christmas and I am getting my name around trying to be helpful so people will come to me for help. But generally, at work, I'm happiest I've been in ages. I did have a short stint as stay at home mum when I was on gardening leave before my redundancy leave started and the grandparents wanted to have a break from childminding our kids (fair enough really - I feel like that too sometimes and their MY kids) as I was at home. So I was at home with them all day apart from a couple of mornings and one full day (Friday - my day of bliss) where I got on with housework and TV! But I was home with them more than usual. And they drove me up the wall. I wasn't nearly as organised as I wanted to be. I wanted to be one of these perfect mothers who arranged playdates and did things with her kids and got the crafty stuff out. But I just couldn't do it. I'm not that person. Maybe its the perfectionist in me coming out again. At least when I'm at work, I can truly focus on what I'm doing without distraction. It also has other benefits like being able to drink tea and coffee and eat your lunch without being climbed on.

Am I a bad mother because I don't want to spend every day with my children?