DS will be two next week. I didn't particularly enjoy the newborn stage but since then I've largely found parenthood more pleasure than slog. I absolutely adore him. But I just don't feel like I'm being a good job of being his mum. During lockdown DH and I were both working full-time from home with no childcare, DH did probably about 60% of childcare (because his work hours dropped down working from home and mine increased) but there was a lot of shushing him because we were both on calls, a lot of keeping a vague eye on him while he quietly destroyed the house and a lot more TV than I feel good about. We were both working every evening to make up the daytime hours and we were exhausted - I always thought 'tomorrow we'll do more crafts or whatever' but more or often than not it didn't seem to happen, and I feel crap and guilty about it.
As of last week he's back at nursery three days a week, and I thought that this would be the bit where we could all get back to 'normal' and I'd be a much more fun, engaged, present parent again, and the excess TV would stop. But I'm 8 weeks pregnant and feel awful with it (I felt fine with DS at the same stage) - nothing unusually bad, just a lot of nausea and I'm so tired. DH has looked after DS nearly all weekend and in the small amount of time I had him on my own today I ended up shouting at him - I try to never shout but I just lost my temper over a perfectly normal bit of toddlerish behaviour. I then put the TV on again. If things had been normal otherwise I'd think that a few weeks of sub-par parenting while I feel crap wasn't the end of the world, but this comes right on the back of months of things not being great. It's been ages since I feel like I've been a good mum, and I'm worried that this will have a long-term effect on DS. After I shouted at him he came to give me one of his biscuits to try and make amends, which made me feel so guilty. I'm worried that having this grumpy mum who (from his point of view) can't be bothered will change who he is.