I left the house with the weight of mom guilt bearing down on my entire body. I yelled at my minis. Not just yelled at them to stop doing something, but the kind of yelling because I was pissed at their behavior. I was not their maid nor their waitress and they were complete asses to me. Even when I used my usual go-to's for handling things, their behavior just got worse.
"I expect to be respected by you!" I yelled at them. Moments later my husband returned home from work and I happily left the house. Not a hug goodnight, not a kiss, just a slammed bedroom door as they lay in their beds. Even the threat of calling Santa had done no good.
Usually I use my mom guilt to I think of a solution to our problem or come up with a new parenting technique or a new way to handle things. This time around the guilt choked me as I recalled my loud yelling to my children. I drove down the street when a brightly colored store sign come into view. In that moment, I gave into my mom guilt.
I walked out of Toys R Us with a new train track system, figurines, and a few other gems to bring about the smiles that I had taken away. I got home, recruited the Hubs to help set the toys up, and then I got the boys out of bed to calmly apologize. That was my plan at least. I found myself saying "do you want to wake up and come spend some time with me?" "Sure!" they said as enthusiastically as they could in the middle of the night. We popped in a movie, had a snack, and played nicely with their new toys. I took the time to apologize and calmly explained how I expected their behavior to change.
Will my kids still treat me like their waitress? Probably as I did nothing in this situation to teach them otherwise. Do I feel any better about how I handled the situation in the first place? Not really. Is my mom guilt gone? Absolutely.
I usually take advantage of teachable times such as this, but on this night it meant more to me to go to bed with my heart full of love, the smiles I saw back on my minis faces, and free of any kind of mommy guilt.