Living for the weekend.

An old adage that I have been heard to say on more then one ocassion is "You mustn't wish your life away". A sentiment familiar to people the world over I am sure. This is something that I regularly ignore when I spend my whole working week wishing that it was the weekend.

I used to look forward to the weekend to have a lie in, go shopping, see friends and family and spend time with my husband. When you become a mum and work full time all these priorities for the weekend go out the window. Of course I love to spend time with my husband and see friends and family whenever possible but there is a certain very small person that I can't wait to spend lots of quality time with. Now my weekends consist of what I can do with her. Lie ins are a dim and distant memory and my time to rest is once she is in bed and all the chores are done. I am not saying this for sympathy but to explain that this is my life and I love that part of it. I wouldn't have my world any other way. Sunday is family day in our house. Whatever we are doing on that day we do it together as a family. This weekend we are heading to the swimming pool.

On the flip side of all the quality time that we have at the weekend is the guilt that can be overwhelming when I go to work Monday to Friday. Circumstances dictate that I work full time, a situation that I know there are thousands of other mums in. To know I am not alone does not make the guilt any easier to bear. My little girl is in a very good nursery that we are really happy with and she has friends there. When we arrive every morning she seems genuinely happy to be there. This is all small consolation. I am fortunate in my job that I can get to pick her up at the latest 5pm, some days as early as 4pm. I try to always make sure that on a Friday I am there as early as I can manage. Today that wasn't possible and I actually cried as I felt so guilty. I got to the nursery at 4.45 and found myself running up the path to the nursery to get there as quickly as I possibly could. I know she doesn't understand and half an hour makes no difference to her but that doesn't make me feel any better.

Now I find myself in the position of permanently wishing my life away as the weekends are my time with my little girl.