Which Plate Will Drop?

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The last few days have been rough. Scratch that. Make that the last week.

My work is winding down. I’m putting finishing touches on about five websites and getting ready to install and launch the last few that I have to finish up before I take maternity leave. I’ve been throwing myself into my work in an attempt to finish up before my scheduled maternity leave so that I can relax and enjoy the last few weeks of pregnancy with my biggest boy by his lonesome.

His birthday is coming up. I want to be done with work before his birthday. I mean totally and completely done. Not done in the essence of having my sites finished and installed but still needing to make adjustments and changes here and there. “Done” as in little to no email coming in that’s work related, no sitting at the computer for a few hours at the time to finish and install a design. Just…finished.

I have felt like a complete and total failure at motherhood and wiferey (I totally made that work up…I think) lately. Before I got pregnant and earlier in this pregnancy, my work hours were limited. I took time off during the day to spend with Noah. To play, to watch movies, to go to the park. To do whatever it was he wanted to do at that time. I cooked dinner for my husband and my son. I kept the house tidy and clean. I kept the laundry folded and put away.

The last few months?

I feel like I’ve done nothing more than let them down time and time again.

My husband has been a champ by taking over a lot of the cooking duties and eating take out more often than we would ever normally eat. He’s kept his mouth shut about the overflowing laundry basket and has, on more than a dozen+ occasions, dug clothes out of the basket of clean stuff waiting to be folded without complaint. He hasn’t whined. Hasn’t complained. Hasn’t grumbled about me being zoned into my work during the day and zoned into sleeping when the day is over.

And for that (among about a million and one other reasons) I love him.

But, my guilt is still there.

Not only guilty because of my lack of success at being the wife and mother that I feel like they deserve, but guilty because I love my job. And I love what I do.

And because I don’t want to stop what I’m doing.

Not that I don’t want to stop being a wife and mother.

Because that’s not it at all. I love more than anything in this worldly existence knowing that my three boys depend on me and love me and turn to me for things. I love being a mama to my biggest boy and nothing has me more excited than being a mama to two boys and watching our littlest grow up while our biggest teaches him “how to be a big boy.”

Nothing gives me butterflies and excites me like knowing that I get to spend the rest of my life with my husband. That our future is still up in the air, but that we’ll be in it together. Whether that includes more children, more moves (which we are certain it will include) and more school. It doesn’t matter what it holds as long as we’re together.

But my work?

My work completes me in a way that I never knew that I needed completing. It gives me a sense of accomplishment that motherhood and being a wife doesn’t. It spurs my creativity. It pushes my mind and my spirit. It gives me something that is solely mine.

And I need that. As much as I need my family.

And that? That makes me feel guilty. Because right now I don’t feel like I’m balancing it. I don’t feel like either aspect of my life (work and family) are getting what they deserve from me. I can’t devote everything to my work, because of my family. And I can’t devote everything to my family because of my work. But I don’t want to let either of them go.

I know in my heart that if it did come down to having to choose one of the other, that hands down my family would win. I’d stop work, stop design, stop whatever it took to make them happy and ensure that they knew they were loved and cared for and appreciated.

But, in my heart I hope that it doesn’t come to that. And I’ll do what I have to to make sure it doesn’t.

Because I have big plans for my business. Big goals and big dreams and big things that I want to bring to my clients and my business in 2013.

But, I have big plans for my family. Trips to Disney World, trips to the beach, a long trip home next year while my husband is in school. Travel. Learning. Photo’s and games. Things that we’ll all remember even after the work is done and the business is gone.

It’s just a matter of juggling plates these days.

I just hope that none of them fall.

Linking up with Shell @ Things I Can’t Say for Pour Your Heart Out.