Motherhood

Why is it your children always look the cutest when they're sleeping after you've fought and gotten frustrated with them for the previous 2 hours before they went to bed? Better question: why is motherhood so full of guilt? Tonight I was feeling awful and my kids were driving me CRAZY! I had to go out in the terrible fog to a presidency meeting, which can only happen on wednesday evenings because my presidency is so busy, that's the only time all of us can get together - but of course my husband has Young Men's then, so that means my kids have to join me at my presidency meetings. This means they have to play in the nursery while I attempt to run a meeting and then get home and in to bed late, because of said meeting. It's stressful and I don't like Wednesdays as a result. Tonight, my kids decided to interrupt my meeting every 2 minutes with some anecdote or to tattle on the other or just to be noisy and frustrating. We got home and I finally got them into bed after all the comments such as: "I need a drink" or "I'm too tired to put my own jammies on" or "I don't want to say prayers", were dealt with. And now I look at them fast asleep and get frustrated with myself that the last moments of the day that we got to spend together were spent in frustration. And then I think, "what if tonight is the night I go into labor, and when they wake up in the morning, I'm not here and their entire world will have changed while they were sleeping, and the last moments they had with their 'mom-of-two' before she became 'stressed-out-tired-mom-of-three' were stressed out and tired?" Of course only mothers think this way, but it's still the thoughts that are nagging at my mind tonight as I sit alone while Tyler is at stake basketball. So now I will sit and watch mindless television for a few minutes before I go to bed alone because Tyler won't be home until somewhere near midnight and will be too wound up from playing basketball to be ready for bed until somewhere near 1:30 - and I just can't handle being a guilt-free mom tomorrow if I stay up that late tonight.