Guilt as a maternal instinct.

I have always heaped a lot of guilt on top of myself. It's just part of my sparkling personality. Becoming a mother has not helped alleviate any of it. As you can imagine, it's gotten infinitely worse. Another human being's welfare and personality is up to me (and Kyle, my husband, but I haven't started feeling guilt for someone else - yet).

So as much as I wish that this picture was a cute cartoony representation of my life, it's not. I have to work 37 and a half hours a week in a town 25 minutes away from our house because it is not financially feasible for me to stay home with Hank. This causes much guilt. I feel bad about relying on my mom, my mother-in-law and Kyle (whose job is flexible enough for him to be able to stay home two days a week) to watch him. I feel terrible about shuttling him around from place to place every day. I feel like an absolute monster for even thinking about wanting to do something for myself after work, like shop or hang out with friends... I have yet to do that, by the way, and I've been back to work full-time since mid-August. Christmas shopping will be interesting.

When I come home at night, it's a race against the clock to get everything done. I have approximately four hours before I hit a wall. Like last night... I picked Hank up from my MIL's, made French toast and scrambled eggs for dinner, and then gave Hank a bath in the kitchen sink while Kyle made a Wal-Mart run. I try to have some semblance of a routine for the baby by operating on the "Three B's" schedule every evening - Bath, Bottle, Bed. We got through the first two just fine, with him drifting off to sleep after just a couple ounces, but as soon as I went to lay him down in his swing (because he's become anti-crib for some unknown reason), he was wide awake and flapping his arms and legs excitedly.

As much as I want to spend all my free time with him, I was annoyed and frustrated. I had planned to make myself some homemade hot chocolate with peppermint marshmallows and dye my hair, which I haven't touched since December. I left him strapped in his swing to watch his favorite program, the screen saver on the Apple TV (he can see it from his room when the door's open) so I could walk away and grumble to myself. And then I immediately felt that guilt hit me. I have this cheerful, healthy baby in the next room who just wants to spend a little more of his waking hours with me, and I'm selfishly wanting him to fall asleep so I can have some uninterrupted time to myself. Good lord, I'm getting sniffly just writing about it.

So I went back in to his room and shut the door, turned on some white noise and rocked his swing until he fell asleep - maybe another 10 minutes. By then, the wind was out of my sails, so I just took a shower and went to bed. What's another day of six-inch roots?

I'm still wondering how I strike a balance between me time and baby time... and husband time, too.We need togetherness as much as we need solitude. I guess Hank isn't going to be permanently damaged if we decide to go out on a Saturday night and leave him with grandparents, but it's difficult for me to relax because all I think about is how crappy of a parent I am, leaving him during free time and pawning him off on my parents or Kyle's parents, who probably need a break as much as we do.

Is there an anti-guilt pill someone can prescribe me?