Oh, The Guilt

I think the word "mommy" is synonymous with the word "guilt". I've always been a person that has a guilty conscience even when I haven't done anything wrong. But becoming a mom has made it 1000x worse. Truthfully, though, there aren't many moms that don't feel guilty about things. For me, I feel guilty a couple dozen times a day. I feel guilty....
* when I don't play with E every time he asks me to.
* when I take a client phone call when I'm grocery shopping or at the park because then I can't give my client the attention they deserve.
* when I tell E I can't take him to the park because there's too much to do.
* when the house is filthy because I spend too much time playing with the boys.
* when I read a cheesy romance during E's naptime. (But I don't feel guilty taking a nap with him, which I do a couple times a week)
* when I can't arrange my schedule to volunteer in P's class.
* when I answer emails or pay bills during carpool instead of singing songs or telling E stories.
* when P gets elaborate birthdays (including gifts) but E gets overlooked because he was born 5 days after Christmas and~ heaven forbid~ during the rut.
* when we stopped doing nightly devotions with P and haven't started back up.
* when I don't do crafts with the boys.
* when P gets all the new stuff and E gets all the hand me downs.
* when I don't use a teachable moment to teach them a lesson.
* when the boys eat too much processed food and/or sugar.
* when I don't take the time to figure out what E is trying to say.
* when I allow the TV or technology to "babysit" my boys for an hour.
* when I realize that P took swim, gymnastics and soccer lessons by age 3,  and was a part of Gymboree and weekly playgroups but E has never done any formal lessons/classes and rarely has play dates.
* when I don't teach the boys more Bible verses.
* when I do work after the boys are in bed instead of spending time with Rob.
* when I.......

OK, you get the point. I feel a lot of guilt in one day. Although I've bared my soul about my inner mommy guilt I will conclude by saying that, to me anyway, guilt and worry are 2 different things. I don't worry that these things will affect my boys too much ten years down the road (except the Biblical knowledge).  I feel guilty but I don't let it keep me up at night. I know that in Matthew 6 the Lord commands us not to worry and thankfully there are only 4 things I worry about. 1 only directly relates to my oldest and that's about his behavior at school or when I'm not around him. But even these 4 things are not things I stew about on a regular basis.
In closing, I'd like to say that if you are a mom who can relate to the guilt you are not alone. Whether your child is young or old, you'll probably always have some degree of guilt. But, I saw something on Facebook yesterday that I thought held a lot of truth....."Don't compare yourself with other moms. We're all a hot mess. Some just hide it better than others." So don't beat yourself up if you're not winning the "Mom of the Year" award. It's the nature of motherhood and just keep doing the best you can....without feeling guilty about the things you aren't doing. :)