Mommy time

I did some calculations today. I figure, by my calculations, that before I had a kid I had roughly 48 hours in a week to do what I wanted. Probably 4 hours every week day after work and 14 hours each for Saturday and Sunday. Granted, I did choose to spend some of that time cleaning and cooking, but not much and I was mostly the only person who suffered if it didn't happen.

Lately I have been feeling pretty guilty that I am sending A. to preschool/daycare 3 days a week for 7 hours and not really accomplishing much in that time. Yeah, I go to the gym, but that is about all I can routinely expect to accomplish. I feel drained and resentful when laundry or housekeeping needs to eat up my precious me time. I so desperately WANT to be bored.

I feel guilty because I know that other mother's generally don't get that option. (At least not until their kids are in school.) And I am kind of squandering my time alone a time that could be productive without a midget "helper". At the same time, I am doing exactly what I want for less than HALF the amount of time I used to. Shouldn't I be allowed to be lazy without guilt?

In some ways I knew this would happen when I got to be a mom, but I guess I always thought I would get SOME downtime from motherhood. I just didn't do the math to figure out that if I was either a Single SAHM or Working Mom that I would be reduce myself from 48 hours to MAYBE 2 a week. And that I would feel horrible for hiring someone to even get myself back to 1/2 of what I had before. So maybe I am going to go ahead and enjoy this for a little bit before I have to go back to work.