A Struggle with Guilt and Balance

Laughs, playing, fun….laundry, dishes, dinner…. studying, research, emailing….working, wife, mother….exercise and sleeping (what are those).   I struggle every day with finding a balance between all of these and along with the struggle comes the guilt that I am not doing enough or maybe I am doing too much.   

My sweet 19 month old is growing up before my eyes and I want to hold on to every moment that I can.  I don’t want to miss his laughs, seeing his face the first time he discovers he can do something new, hearing him laugh when he is caught doing something he knows she shouldn’t be doing (ex: taking ornaments off the Christmas tree), the temper tantrums, racing around the house trying to “get” him as he giggles, tickling his toes, blowing raspberries on his stomach, watching him “reading” a book, listening to him laugh as he begin to understand the funny parts of his favorite show Mickey Mouse, watching him climb on and off the couch, learning to make his fire truck sirens go off again and again and again, playing in his pool of balls and throwing them all over the den, racing his trucks around the floor, watching him splash in the bathtub, rocking him before he goes to bed, and saying his prayers.

On the other side of my non-playful life, the loads of laundry seem to never end, the dishes overflow onto the counter, the dishwasher always seems to need to be loaded or unloaded,   my computer is always screaming at me to work on my thesis so I can be officially done with my master’s, the carpet needs to be vacummed on a daily sometimes hourly  basis, my thoughts sometimes go to thinking about work and how I can make a change or thank my teachers more,  how I can be a better wife, how I can be a better mother, will I ever lose weight because I can’t keep blaming the pregnancy, and what is sleep and how can I get it.

How does someone find a balance between working, being a wife, a homemaker, and a mother?  I keep thinking that the struggle and guilt will get easier but I have come to realize that I don’t think it will get easier so I have to find the balance between everything.  How have you found a way to balance all that life brings?