Add it to the pile

You know, one thing that no one truly prepared me for was the GUILT.

Rational, irrational...it all pretty much gets stirred into the great big melting pot overflowing with reasons why I suck as a parent.

Guilt because I'm way too impatient.  Guilt because sometimes I just can't listen to that blasted Pink Martini CD any more without wanting to HURL.  Guilt because to be brutally honest, I don't really enjoy watching my child play soccer (she's really not very good and she doesn't try very hard).  Guilt because I find Disney Princess Monopoly STUPEFYINGLY BORING.  Guilt because I keep suckers in my purse for Eva because SOMETIMES I NEED THIRTY SECONDS OF SILENCE AND LORD KNOWS THAT WON'T HAPPEN IN THIS LIFETIME UNLESS THAT KID'S MOUTH IS OTHERWISE OCCUPIED.

But today...today was special.

For a variety of reasons, I had to take Addie to work with me.  

This means that we had to wake her up.

Now, Adele is teething.  She's a sleepy little bucket of snot and drool.  Whiny, clingy...all she wants is to be close to Mama and Papa.  She had trouble getting to sleep last night, and when she finally did, she woke up a couple of times.  So this morning, waking her up...you betcha, rhymes with HILT.  Poor little maggot...sound asleep...and we had to wake her up.  Her hair was soaking wet on one side from the drool, and Etienne dressed her while she half-slept.   Breakfast was a bottle and some dry cereal (she gets fruit as a snack midmorning at the daycare...yeah, let someone ELSE feed my hungry child.  GUILT).

I figured things would be quiet enough at work for me to keep Addie for a few hours...it's the Olympics, we have a short show, one story was already lined up, only four reporters to assign.   But rioters in Montreal North had other plans.   A nutso morning.  NUTSO.   No time to entertain an 18-pound tornado spiralling around the newsroom.  Turned my eyes away for five seconds and she was sucking on a fossilized empty mustard packet.  Took that away, turned away for another five seconds, and she was emptying a garbage can into her mouth.  Dealt with that, turned away for another five seconds and looked down to see my child with a fistful of computer cords between her jaws.

So that is why, only ten minutes into my shift and at a time when she is usually just waking up...I hauled my sleepy baby girl up the escalator and dumped her in the lap of the lovely daycare teacher, thinking at least she would be safe there.  Perhaps they might even feed her. Or change her diaper, even.

Then I scuttled back down to my desk, with Addie's cries ringing in my ears.

Now, I know that it's important for kids to have strong role models...mums who are challenged and happy...families that are financially secure...and so on.  I know that they learn valuable social skills and gain strong immune systems at daycare and so on and so on and so on.  

I can justify this whole thing all I want.  

But in the end, my guilt still explodes like a cop car in Montreal North.

This morning, I really and truly felt like a crummy mummy.  

The one good thing I can find in all of this:

The sun will come up in the morning...

And I will get to try again.

After all...there are so many multitudes of OTHER ways I can royally suck as a parent.

Clearly, I've got my work cut out for me.