I felt like I had been caught.

“What did you today?” my 4-year-old son asked when I picked him up from preschool.

He never asks me that. He never really answers when I ask him that. What did he know? Did he know what I did?

Instantly I felt guilty. Like most moms, I experience all sorts of mommy guilt, nearly all the time.  “I don’t teach them enough at home,” “They aren’t eating healthy enough,” “We watch too much TV.” “I’m too hard on my kids,” “I’m not hard enough on my kids.” The list never ends.  

The main source of my guilt, however, stems from my fear that I don’t spend enough quality time with my children even though they are with me nearly all the time, except for a few hours a week when they are at the gym daycare and the two days Guillermo is at preschool.

I quit my job a few years ago after Maya was born because I wanted to be home with my kids when they were young. When I was working, I stressed that I didn’t have enough time with Guillermo so I spent nearly all my free time with him. But now that I am home, and sometimes a bit stir crazy, I wonder how much quality time they need from me and just what exactly constitutes quality time.

Do I exchange my office hours strictly for playing-and-caring-for-my-kids hours? Does taking Maya to story time count as mommy-daughter quality time since the librarian is doing the entertaining and Maya is dancing around the room without my help? Does cheering Guillermo on at soccer practice count since we are not interacting?

I wish there was a magic alarm that rang each day after you had achieved the right combination of, in my case, mother-son, mother-daughter and mother-son-daughter time. The alarm wouldn’t necessarily signal when you should stop the quality time, but it would let you know you were good for the day and you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking off the Batman cape to do laundry or check your e-mail because your kids need to play on their own, too.

Back to Guillermo’s question. What had I done that day?

The truth was, while Guillermo was at school I had taken Maya to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. We looked at the cow, the goat and the bears. We saw lots of butterflies and I taught her about pollen when she declared that the white stuff floating around her was snow. It was a beautiful day for the two of us.  When we left, I could hear my imaginary magic alarm ringing. Mother-daughter quality time achieved.

But while I was at the museum, I also felt guilty. I’d never been there without Guillermo and felt somehow that I was cheating him. While I was giggling with Maya, he was at preschool, having fun, sure, but not spending quality time with me. I knew I had better make story time that night extra special for him.

Natalie appears every Sunday on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Natalie at A Day at the Park.