Missed my calling???

As a child, I always said I was either going to be a singer/actress raking in grammy's and academy awards and/or I was going to be a mom.  Luckily, I knew the first was a pipe dream and didn't cling onto fantasies.  I focused hard on being a mom.  It was not only important to me to be a mom but, to be able to stay at home with my children.  I remember telling Ken while we were still dating and having the discussions of what we wanted for our future that if I couldn't stay home with my children, then I wouldn't have any.  Of course, this was easy for me to say knowing that I would never actually have to make that choice.  I already knew Ken would support me in staying home with our children.  I was thankful to find out that he not only supported me in that choice but, felt the same on the matter.  We did wait a while to have children though so, after high school, I did get some higher education and worked in the medical field for a while.  However, I never focused on a big career.  I said as a child, I was going to be a mom and never seemed to really consider anything else.  Was that a good choice for me??  Did I miss my calling?  Was being a stay at home mom really the best choice for me or more important for my children?

One of my big personality flaws in my opinion is, I get a bit of tunnel vision with certain decisions.  They are usually harmless like I set it out in my mind what I need to get done before we leave the house and I absolutely have to complete those things regardless of how late it's going to make me or how silly the tasks are.  That's the harmless part since it doesn't really matter if I get to the market 30min later than I expected because I had to pick up toys and do the dishes before I left the house instead of when I came back home.  It's OCD and luckily, doesn't keep me from having a good life.  However, I do wonder if it helped put me down a path that maybe wasn't "my calling".  As stylish as I am in the photo above, I'm not thinking I should've chased a singing/acting career but, was being a stay at home mom the right dream to chase?  Was my OCD causing me to be blinded to another career that would've enriched not only my life been created a better life for my children?

This question has been weighing on my mind for a while now.  I felt like a decent stay at home mom after Gwendolyn was born.  Then she wasn't an infant anymore and I found out I'm terrible at getting on the ground and playing with her.  Coloring and doing puzzles seem to take a patience, I don't possess.  Setting up crafts never happens because I never want to deal with the frustration of doing the project or the mess that follows.  Luckily, she is in school 10 hours a week where she gets to do all those things but, I feel terrible that it's only 10 measly hours a week when she gets true enrichment of play and learning.   Her friends are writing their names and my daughter isn't.  Poor Gwendolyn has already shown signs of her own OCD and certain things stop her dead in her tracks.  She's paralyzed and can't move on unless things are done a certain way.  Might this not be so, if I had been a working mom and my Gwendolyn had a daycare and school to give her the enrichment I've so clearly failed at everyday?  It's only gotten worse of course as Link became a toddler.  Now, I feel like I'm failing him as well and since patience is clearly my biggest problem, I end up frustrated most of the time, causing my children to be distressed and unhappy.  It's not all the time of course.  I would still consider us to be a happy family and my children aren't neglected but, could they have better??

Regardless of the answer to those questions, the fact still remains that daycare and preschools are expensive and unless you've planned to be a working mom all along, it's doubtful any paycheck brought home would cover those costs.  So here I am, thinking about what my future holds but, more importantly, what my children's future holds and how have I set them back due to my blindness.  I don't write this post as a plea for sympathy.  I write it only because, I think the best way to move forward with certain things in life, you need to own up to your own short comings.  Announce that yes, I acknowledge that I was wrong, I'm a putz for being the way I am and only hope that by owning up to it, maybe I can change and set us out on a new path.