I think there are few things I like less than the onslaught of unadulterated Mommy Guilt.  And there seems to be no lack of material to feel some sort of guilt over.

Like when I send them to school and notice as they are getting out of the car that there is a stain on their shirt or a hole in their knee.  Or that their hair needed cutting three weeks ago.  Or when there is a school project due and I don’t read the instructions completely and they are the only ones scrambling to get it done the morning it is due.

Yes, there are many, MANY, many things we moms can feel guilty for.

But I am experiencing a new guilt level that I thought would not be possible once I stopped traveling for work and started staying home full time.  Missing my children’s school events.

As you may know, I have been privy to some pretty fantastic trips as a blogger.  They are work trips – do not be fooled – but there are fun elements tied in that make them just plain awesome too!  Before I accept a trip, I check my family calendar.  Which you’d think I kept to the very minute.

I don’t.

I try to make sure that if I have to miss something for an event it will not be major.  In fact, I missed a cheer performance for my two oldest girls last year but reasoned that they had another in a month and would not really care.  I was right and I think they actually had more fun showing me the video and reenacting the performance in the living room than they cared that I actually missed it.

Mommy guilt averted once I got home and saw that they were not really phased by it.

But in a week, I leave for Orlando for another once in a lifetime adventure with Disneynature Films and the Premier of Chimpanzee.  Before I accepted, I checked my calendars.  There were no school events listed at all over that weekend.  I accepted and have been walking on air ever since.

Until an email today weighted me through my cloud and slammed me flat footed back to Earth.

I am going to miss my middle daughter’s preschool Spring Sing.  Why?  I can pretend to blame it on the preschool – which initially it looked like I could – but the honest truth is it is because Mommy wrote that the Spring Sing was one week later on the family calendar.  Despite many, MANY notices that it was coming, much talk about how hard she is working and more, I wrote it on the wrong week.

To be brutally honest, I probably would have taken the trip anyway.  It is an amazing opportunity and this is not her last preschool concert.  But at least I would have been prepared, I suppose, and just dealing with the guilt of being selfish.  And I could have been preparing her.  Now, not only do I have to tell them I am going on a trip, but now I have to tell her I am missing her concert too.

Oh the mommy guilt… piled on like a stack of old quilts.  Heavy and unforgiving in their persistent weight.

I guess it is a good thing I will be at Disney World.  The tangible evidence of my guilt will have more impact when I hand it to her the day I get back!

But I’ll still lose sleep, give her extra hugs and let the tears fall.  Once in a lifetime or not, I will be missing her school function.  And that is a mommy guilt I don’t like having to deal with.

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