Vice Device

I have a vice. It’s called reading. I like to read way too much, and as a result, sometimes my children pay the price. Today, my son paid the price for the fact that I went to bed much too late. I couldn’t fall asleep after I stayed up late reading, so I was on the computer until much later.

By the time I went to bed, I knew I was in trouble. It also doesn’t help that I have my cell phone as an alarm, and the ringer is a song I know too well. So it didn’t serve to wake me today, and I almost made my son miss the bus. He managed to make the bus, but I forgot to pack his extra fruit in his lunchbox, and to add insult to injury, he didn’t even get to take a bite of his breakfast.

I thought the bus was going to pull away from the curb, and I had prepared myself to drive him to school, but the bus driver paused, and I had to get him on it, otherwise it would have seemed a waste. But now, I have this heavy mantle of guilt because my son went to school without his breakfast, and it’s all my fault.

I called the school and made arrangements for him to eat breakfast there. It’s not the same, and it’s a paltry reparation given what I did, but it’s the best I can do in this short a time. I feel a little better knowing he isn’t going to starve until lunch time, but it still leaves me feeling like a very bad person.

My vice is that I like to read. Read and sleep. Neither of which goes well. It’s impossible to blend the two. So, I am now tired and guilt-ridden. Such is my lot today. I hope he is doing okay. I will be at the school later to drop off his brother at his afternoon kindergarten class, so I can check on him.

The constant failures of motherhood.