High Five!

I feel so dang accomplished by just putting food on the table and having the five (OMG, there's five!) of us sit around together and eat it. I worked for the money to buy that food, I bought that food and brought it home, I prepared that food, I served that food and by the constant repetition of us eating (on the nights that I am home) (and not at work) (because that's pretty much the only place I go) together...my kids are going to grow up and have at least one memory of us eating a meal together. I'm proud of myself for that.

It feels nice to get one thing right because MAN I am good at kicking myself for everything I get wrong. Or even things that I would find a way to kick myself about if I made a different choice. I wonder if other mothers feel this way...the impression I get from talking to them is that they do. Whatever choices we make (and there's so many to make all the time) we can have guilt about them...even while simultaneously knowing we made the best choice, listing the good points of said choice and explaining why a different choice wouldn't have worked. Why are we so good at this? I assume that shopping is the modern day version of gathering (as in hunting/gathering) (PS I'm dang good at it) and I am not sure what guilt is the modern version of. Or why it's so highly developed in us. Like, what survival purpose does constant guilt serve? I can't figure it out. But I'd like to so I can feel good about how well developed mine is instead of thinking "I WISH MY BRAIN WOULD SHUT UP NOW." so much of the time.

When we eat together, New Baby sits on a Bumbo in the center of the table.