Hello, Guilt.

I don't know if it just comes with being a mom or a woman who is constantly trying to better herself, but I have become well aquainted with guilt lately and today it came in a flood.

I've been called in our ward to work with Activity Day girls (8-11 year olds) and we planned a big mother-daughter party for our activity today. Unfortunately, I gave Kathrynn a cold that I developed on Sunday and she had this nasty yellow-green stuff coming out of her nose, so I decided that it would be best if I did not come tonight. Her immune system is weak and I just can't deal with another major illness in our house right now - and EVERYTHING is in the air right now. Plus, I didn't want to get anyone else sick, or gross any of the girls out. I made this decision a few hours before the activity, but had an impossible time reaching one of the other leaders to let her know. I left a message with her husband, but, as much as we love them, I think we all know they aren't the best at relaying those messages. So, I finally reached her about half an hour before we were due to be at the church to set up and felt just HORRIBLE. I was totally stricken with guilt the ENTIRE night over this. I'm not a slacker in my callings. I just didn't want to take my sick child out.

THEN... Steve went off to Young Men's and showed back up at our house with a couple of young women who were doing a service scavenger hunt, looking for food to give to people for Thanksgiving. First, let me say, I am HORRIBLE at doing anything on the fly. I'm a total OCD control freak "D" personality who needs to know exactly what's happening like 2 days before it happens. My brain literally does not function when something is put before me in a matter of seconds. Something I definitely know I need to work on, don't worry. :) Anyway, they handed me this list and I took the girls down to our food storage pantry and put a few things in a bag for them, all the while having a funny little banter with them about the insane amount of sugar cereal we have in our storage. OK, I buy things when I can get them ridiculously cheap, and that opportunity has come very often in the sugar cereal department. I'm officially no longer buying cereal because of it. Anyway, one of the girls comes from a family of 8 and was talking about how they don't have anything like that at their house and how they have to eat gross stuff - like oatmeal - for breakfast. I'm actually good friends with her mom, so this made me laugh, but that the same time I felt guilty. We are totally spoiled. Totally. We have tons of sugar cereal in our food storage. We have anything we may want or need at our fingertips and there are so many people who don't have anything. We have a surplus. Yes, we are exceedingly blessed. But at that moment, I almost felt bad for it.

Then I started feeling guilty that we only have 2 kids and are holding off a little longer before we even start thinking about a third. There's my friend's daughter.. my friend who is only a few years older than me and devotes her life to her 8 children. Of course, she has been married a LOT longer than Steve and I have and it wouldn't be physically possible, well it would, but not comfortably, for me to do the same, but I don't have a huge desire to jump the gun and get pregnant again. I want the dust to settle in our lives. I want our kids to not have stress for a while. I just want things to be consistent and peaceful before we have another baby.

Then the girls left and I realized I only gave them a few things and got the REAL picture of what they were doing and wished I had opened more of my pantry to them. I regretted not giving them the chicken in our freezer and thought of all of the people who had so much less than us in our own community.

To top everything off, I accidently poked Joe in the eye right before bed. That sent me over the guilt edge. He has this thing about grabbing my back pocket or the back belt loop on my pants and being my little train and I thought it was his hand, but it was somehow his face that I grabbed, poking him in the eye and leading to a good 10 minute cry on his part (and profuse teasing from Steve about how it'll be OK if Joe goes blind). I felt so so so bad! Of course, it didn't help that he was VERY tired and had been begging to go to bed like 30 minutes earlier. He's just been the sweetest, most fun little guy ever lately, and I hated ending his day that way. Today, we went the grocery store and in the produce section he started singing this song he was making up about all of the fruits and vegetables at the top of his lungs, causing everyone to giggle. He didn't need me to poke him in the eye. :(

So, that's my day. I'm hoping I get my fill of guilt for a while because it's exhausting.