Another week, another Mamma Guilt Monday, courtesy of Cop Mama.

Mamma Guilt Part 1

On Friday morning, as the kids assembled into their lines after the school bell had rung, I noticed that many of the other kids had jeans and other casual clothes on, rather than the school uniform.  It suddenly dawned on me that it must be a Dress Down Friday, which I had been unaware of.  I mentioned this to another mum, who said:

“Och aye! It’s Dress Doon Friday.  Did ye forget?”

“I knew nothing about it.”

“Did ye no get the note aboot it?”

“No.”

When a letter is sent from the school, in my daughters’ schoolbags, at the beginning of the week, it doesn’t always get passed on to me.  It often (not always) goes missing en route.  Mondays and Tuesdays, the girls get picked up from school by my in-laws.  They go back to my in-laws house and do their homework there.  Sometimes the notes are taken out the schoolbags and not put back in. 

And so the feelings of Mamma Guilt flowed.  I felt guilty about not being there to pick the girls up from school every day, hear about their day, help with their homework, read their notes.  I felt guilty that they would feel the “odd ones out” because they were dressed in their school uniform on a Dress Down Day.

PS  The Scots dialect above was put in to entertain my American friends (Cop Mama & Mama M.), who are eager for me to start vlogging so they can hear my accent!  LOL  Watch this space…

Mamma Guilt Part 2

Yesterday was Mothers Day here in the UK, and my lovely daughters brought their beautiful cards, gifts cuddles and kisses to me in bed around 0730.  (Why oh why can they jump out of bed early at the weekend, but practically need shoe-horned out of bed for school during the week?!)

As Hubby was away to work, I had to get up and make breakfast, so we all had a lovely “picnic” breakfast in bed of toast, juice and coffee (for me only, of course!)

After breakfast the girls played happily together in their room with their Disney Princess dolls, while I got showered and dressed.  While I was getting ready the girls came through to see me and tell me that they had agreed to swap their dolls’ dresses and “even their husbands!” (the Handsome Prince and Prince Charming) LOL    They skipped back through to their room to continue with their game.

Ten minutes later I rush through to their room, on hearing a distressed yelp from Sophie.  I see the two of them kneeling on the carpet beside all their Prince and Princess paraphernalia.  Sophie is crying, whilst Rachel is clutching her Princess and some dresses.  It takes me a few minutes to decipher what is wrong because Sophie is bawling her eyes out while trying to tell me what happened.  It transpires that Sophie had only wanted to trade her dress for the day, NOT forever!  Rachel is insisting that the trade is for good.  I interject:

“OK then.  You’ll have to swap back tomorrow.”

Rachel then joins her sister in bawling her eyes out. 

“Girls!  You need to play nice together and share your toys.”

*Wails* *Sobs*

“Remember this is Mothers Day!  You have to be good girls for Mummy today.”

*Wails* *Sobs*

“Remember what you  said to Mummy earlier? You said ‘Happy Mothers Day!’ and this is not making me very happy!”

*Wails* *Sobs*

“Now lets shake hands with your sister and promise to play nice and share.”

This was met with a collective:

“Uh Uh!” (translates as “No!”)

This is when I ‘lost the plot’ slightly:

“Right! If you don’t stop bickering and crying and start playing nice, I’m going to bundle up all this Princess stuff and send it back to Granny’s and you’ll not get to play with it again!”

*WAIL!*  *YELP!*

“Well, I’m going to leave you to sort it out for five minutes.  When you’ve calmed down you can come and say ‘Sorry’ to Mummy.  You can say ‘Sorry for spoiling Mothers Day’.”

I then marched out the room and put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee.  As I sat down on the couch and sipped my coffee, I felt pangs of Mamma Guilt for losing my temper and telling them they’d spoiled Mothers’ Day.

Five minutes later I was relieved to hear the girls playing happily together again.  Five minutes after that, Rachel appeared with her Nintendo DSi.  On the screen was the word “sore” and some kisses and love hearts.  I laughed out loud.

“Oh Sweetheart, that’s ok.  Come give Mummy a cuddle.”

Then Sophie appeared with a similar “Sore” message on her DSi.

After we had all kissed and made up, I told the girls how to spell “Sorry” properly, and we all laughed when I told them what they had actually written.

“It’s ok though!  I knew what you meant.  Well done for trying!”

They both then skipped happily back to their room to play, and I was left feeling very privileged to have such wonderful little girls.

Please click here to enter the Mama Guilt Monday MckLinky on Cop Mama’s website.