But I'd like to add on. You are not just an ok mom because you decided you needed a mental health day from momming. Honey if you let screens baby sit those kids for 2 days while they ate only snacks they could reach or make themselves, or h3ll, threw lunchables at them so be it. It doesn't make you less than when you're not super mom. No mother, no woman can be the ideal version of themselves to all people all of the time and that's a target you also need to walk away from.
You are doing your best to cope right now with your MR crumbling, with having to figure out who you are now and who you'll be on the other side of this. Of an uncertain future. A pandemic. Raising kids as a single mom. None of this is easy alone, much less piled on each other. The fact that you aren't spending 23 hours our of a 24 hour day crumpled up in sobbing ball on the floor with a bottle of wine in one hand and a fist full of kleenex in the other is in and of itself you being a supermom.
I'm going to tell you one really big secret of being a single mom. Single moms DGAF about having perfectly feed, beautifully dressed, angelic, well groomed and behaved children. We care about having kind, self-reliant, good kids who know they are supported and loved. My daughter grew up with waaaayyy too much screen time. She often ate fruit snacks and had juice boxes. She had McDonald's happy meals. Some times I let her stay up as late as she wanted. Or let her sleep in as long as she wanted even though I knew it was going to throw off her schedule. I locked myself in the bathroom to cry. I ignored her and felt guilty. I took time for myself and missed her horribly. But guess what, she's 18. She's in 5 college level courses in her senior year of high school. She has an academic scholarship to an expensive private school. And all 5' 7.5" inches of her still likes to climb into my barely 5' 4" lap.
You will drop the ball. You will drop a whole lotta balls. You will drop little racquet balls like letting them eat cookies all day (and for the record we're 5 days out from Christmas I personally think you should make that a new tradition, but I digress). You will drop big giant cannon balls like a doctors appoint you confirmed and been waiting for for weeks, for yourself, or sending one to school when they are actually sick but you were in a rush in the morning and didn't realize it. There will also be basket balls, and golf balls, and marbles (some times yours) and it's all ok. We are not here for perfection. We are here to love the sh!t out of our kids and make sure they're ready to be grown ups and make grown up decisions when the time comes. Being a real human person around them. Taking breaks. Letting them eat cookies. Being a mean mommy. Having a headache. Checking out. Letting them know that can't have things because money is tight. All of that. That is showing them what it's like to be human. Complex, imperfect, loving, wonderful human.
Your children deserve to have reasonable expectations for themselves as adults. Being super mom 24/7 isn't reasonable. If one of your kids' spouses walked out the door and left them with 4 kids, and they were reeling and trying to keep it together and had horrible guilt for letting them eat cookies one day and we're a "mean" parent the next what would you tell them? Would you beat them up the way you are beating yourself up right now? If I know my Sage, the answer to that is a big fat no. My dear, you need to find a place where you allow yourself some grace and forgiveness. You deserve that. And so do your kids.
