An atypical typical mormon mom

Confession #1: I'm not sure I love being a stay at home mom. I love staying at home and I love being a mom. Maybe it's more that I don't think I'm good at it. Or I haven't found the enjoyment yet in "playing" with my kids. I think I'm selfish. That's what it is. I want to do my own thing and I get...frustrated or bothered isn't the right word b/c it's not a negative emotion I feel when they want me to be involved...but it's something. I feel like I'm being intruded upon maybe. It's stupid, really, because I've noticed that when I actually DO play with them, they're funny girls and I have a little bit of fun. Just not enough fun that I want to keep playing with them. I love watching them and listening to them-I'm just not a huge fan of getting into the mix. They do some funny things when they play together-their imaginations are great and they do some awesome pretend play. And it's so fun to watch them get into a story line together and spend hours playing out their story. And they know each other so well that they can switch story lines without telling each other and keep on playing.

But at the same time, I don't know if we'll get to have more kids, so I'm worried that I'm missing out on something important and a few years down the road I'll regret not playing with them more. Am I not getting to know them b/c I don't play with them? Is there something I'm missing? Now that they're pretty self-sufficient I find myself wandering the house for something to do, then wasting away my time on the internet when I could be doing something better-namely, working on all the projects I have in mind. But then I feel guilty when I get focused on a project and not on them! Or I don't work on a project b/c I know I'm going to be interrupted.

Guilt-now there's a typical mormon mom feeling. I have a lot of guilt, but not so much at the same time. I'm not overwhelmed with guilt-I think I do a pretty good job of patting myself on the back for certain things. I feel guilt when I don't do everything I "should" be doing. I think it's b/c I KNOW how important certain things are. Like Family Home Evening, family scripture study, family prayer. I KNOW they are important. But I'm not super consistent. Personal prayers/scripture study are working out for me. But the family stuff hasn't been happening, so I feel guilty that I'm not providing those "protections" for them. One person once explained that you wouldn't send your kids out in the rain without a rain jacket, so why would you send them out into the world without family prayer? I'm not self-disciplined enough to get on top of it.

Self-discipline: and that's ANOTHER confession and weakness of mine. It's all connected. I probably wouldn't have so much guilt if I was more self-disciplined. I have no self discipline at all. The personal scripture study is just now becoming a habit. I was really self-disciplined in high school. Then I went off to college and it all went down the drain. I'm working on it. One thing at a time. But here's my list of things that I want to be more disciplined in:

Going to bed and waking up at decent hours
Getting to the gym
Not eating (or buying) extra sugar
Meal planning
Spending money/staying within budget
Craft/play time with the girls
Family prayer
Family scripture study
FHE

For a long time I was having the personal scripture study guilt, but now that I've gotten that habit underway I think I can start on the next one. One thing at a time.

Well, that's enough of all that's wrong with me.