Mother-daughter relationships

Recently I've realized that I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I have a good mother-daughter relationship with Sarah.  I know that it stems from the fact that I don't have a great relationship with my mom and dad and it is the one thing, more than anything else, that I want to change with my own family.  But what that really means is that I am constantly second-guessing myself and have insane amounts of mommy guilt when it comes to my daughter.

I know that our relationship will never be perfect. I know that she will "hate" me for some horrible thing I do (ground her, not allow her to date someone, not allow her to go to a party, etc.) but I hope that these will be fleeting thoughts and feelings and that she will always know she can come to me about anything and I will be there for her.  And I want her to always know that I love her no matter what, because it is the one thing that I don't have with my own parents.

But then you get to days like today... it's been a rough week.  She was sent home from school because she was sick with what appeared to be a case of indigestion when it was all done.  So then I had both kids at home with me on Monday and Tuesday which was tiring, to say the least.  I had to get her out of school early on Wednesday because it was Halloween so we needed to get home to trick-or-treat.  And now my husband has informed me that I'll have both kids all day Sunday because he has to go into work.  Awesome.

While Luke is starting to sleep better at night and going longer before needing to eat, the issue is that now he needs to eat when it's my turn to feed him.  So I'm up every night feeding him and then I can't get back to sleep.  So I'm becoming more and more sleep deprived with each passing day.

At the same time, my daughter hasn't been sleeping as well, ostensibly due to her molars coming in.  Or she's just having bad dreams... we really have no idea.  What I do know is that she wakes up screaming for mommy in the middle of the night.  And that kills me.  The few times I have gone in to check on her it's clear that she's dreaming because while I can easily calm her, her eyes are shut, and she's basically a zombie that I have to move around/tuck back in.  So then I worry that I could create a night waking habit if I keep going into her.  So then I don't go in and I feel bad, but she eventually falls back asleep after screaming for mommy several times.  Ugh.  This morning she woke up screaming for me and when daddy went in to get her dressed and ready for school she wanted none of it.  That resulted in her screaming so much that she woke up her brother (after I had just spent the previous half hour getting him back to sleep!).  Needless to say, mommy wasn't happy when she came in Sarah's room and I yelled at her and told her to stop crying.  Then I left the room.

Of course the minute I got back to my room the mommy guilt hit hard and fast.  I just yelled at my daughter because she wanted to see me this morning.  Now, on the one hand, she needs to be a-okay with mommy or daddy getting her dressed and ready in the morning so I don't want to create a situation where she'll only work with me because that's no good.  But at the same point, did I go too far and did I just punish my daughter because she wanted to spend time with me?  I don't know the answer.  I just know that I felt like shit.  Normally she comes into our room after she's done getting dressed to give me a hug and kiss before she leaves for school, but daddy just took her straight downstairs.  So I ended up following them because I couldn't take the horrible feelings of guilt anymore and gave her a big hug.  She wouldn't even look at me and obviously realized she had been bad and wouldn't hold her head up.  Of course I then felt even worse.  Now I just sit here today hoping that she has since forgotten the entire scene and will see me when I pick her up at school today and run to me with a smile on her face yelling "Mommy! Mommy!" like she has recently.  I hope so.  Then I'll know that everything is better again.  Until then, I sit here and think about it more and more and pray I didn't just put another nail in the coffin of what will one day be our relationship.