Mommy Guilt

Here I am...in the land of the "blog"...I'm not sure where to begin, except to just jump right in. So...topic of the day. I suffer from "mommy guilt"...who out there that is a mommy doesn't? The difference is that each of us have our own area where the guilt lies. The one I am currently referring to is the "I haven't taken enough pictures or home movies of my child while she's growing up" guilt. And to be honest..although I am willing to take full responsibility for this, I have a co-conspirator... my daughter. She is not what you would call a "ham"..especially when the camera comes out..or let me rephrase that. Not when MY camera comes out...luckily for me, she will do anything that her "Aunt Belinda" (otherwise known as Belinda Higgins of Higgins Photography, AKA the best photographer in the world) asks her to do....but when I want to take a picture? You'd think I had just asked her to dye her hair green..which for those of you who know my daughter, know that is way beyond the realm of possibility for her.

This all occurred to me as I was sitting at her last swim lesson for the week - the one where the parents are allowed to watch, take pictures, video, etc., to document their little one's every smile, laugh, move...and I sit there with ...nothing. No camera, no camcorder. Nothing. Not because I care less than the other parents...but because I am so used to the resistance I face when I attempt to chronicle my child's life that I don't even carry a camera anymore. I had given up.

So I have come to a decision - this is going to be one of those things that becomes a non-negotiable in my house...kinda like the nap my five year old still takes because I don't give her a choice, the oatmeal she has eaten almost every school morning for the last two years because it is important to me that she has a good, balanced breakfast, or the "six bite rule" for new foods. The random pictures and movies are going to be part of that too.

Wish me luck everyone...I'm goin' in!