I wasn't ready

I hate when you are just casually reading and then something you read strikes a cord with you. It makes you think and possibly makes you come to realizations that you MIGHT have been trying to avoid.

Well, when that happens to me, I usually find myself going for a long run and I think about it some more. Last week that's exactly what happened.

As I was lazily browsing MSN, this headline caught my eye:
"Do Working Moms Spoil Their Kids?"

I immediately got this sinking feeling in my stomach and tears started to well up.

I have a career which requires me to work a lot sometimes, I have school which causes me take even more time away and I won't even go into the other things that take time away from E.

I am jealous of stay at home moms (most of the time). I'm not jealous because their lounging at home all day because we all know that's not what happens. What I'm jealous of is the eight additional hours they have the opportunity to spend with their kids. I'm jealous that they get to be there when naptime is over to cuddle and hold just a little longer. I'm jealous that at night, they (maybe) aren't trying to cram 4 hours worth of errands, etc into 2. I'm jealous because their kids will have more memories of that time "mommy and I did...

I'm always finding that when I get home from work, I do tend to be more lenient with E. I don't hold my ground ALL the time because quiet frankly, I hate the thought of spending the very limited time I have with him disciplining him. He is almost 2 so we're entering that stage where we do a lot of parenting.

I know it's wrong. There are other things I've been letting E do that I know I shouldn't but I just kept making excuses..E just needs a little bit of XX...or whatever the case. I'm not sure what happened yesterday but something snapped and I realized it was never him. E has probably been ready for a while but I wasn't.

I guess I am just now realizing that they don't stay babies forever and that they do grow up and part of this "journey" is growing up with him. Change is hard for me sometimes and change that might mean less cuddle time for mom is even tougher.

So the bottom line is I need to let E grow. I'm going to have to get over the fact that he's not a baby anymore. He's practically an adult (ok, maybe not but he is almost 2) and I need to start raising him to be one. An adult that is respectful, attentive, compassionate, thoughtful, loving, and all the other ideal traits that I want E to have.

I know lots of you are parents, did you ever struggle with the transition out of the baby phase? Any other working moms feel like me?