What did Mommy do Today?

Honey! How was your day? What did you do all day?

More than a question, it seems to be an accusation. Or is it simply the guilt which makes a seemingly innocuous question sound like sarcasm.

What did I do all day? A young mother to a toddler who doesn’t go to school. A mother who gets a maid and a cook to help her at home.

I spent the morning in between milk bottles and diapers and breakfast and toddler baths. I marked my afternoon with lunches and following a toddler trail to pick up two thousand bits of Legos and blocks and index cards and crumbs of the breakfast. My evening was more bottles and tending to my little garden and cajoling the toddler into eating the food I thought she would love, but she didn’t. By the time it was night, it did not matter what else I did. But this list is not the reason behind the built up of that guilt I spoke of.

There is another list. Of things I wanted to do but never did. Like I never wrote that piece I promised I will at least start today. I did not wait to smell the roses I promised myself I will smell, because life is too short. I did the laundry – I washed and folded and ironed and organised, but I did not wear that outfit I have been saving to wear on a special day – not fully acknowledging that every day I LIVE is special. And what about those books I started reading but never finished. As yet another day draws to an end, I fumble with the question ‘What did I do today?’ and I promise myself yet again – Tomorrow will be a better day.