Here's some wise advice from Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy. The context was running a business, but moms of young children will understand the need more than anyone!
"I'm so busy doing what I must do that I don't have time for what I ought to do ... and I never get a chance to do what I want to do!"
"Son, that's universal. The way to keep that recipe from killing you is to occasionally do what you want to do anyhow."
That's how I ended up re-reading this book. Feeling ill was keeping me from sleeping, so I got up and for some reason thought of the only Heinlein book that survived (because it was not with the rest) a long-ago bookshelf purge. Mostly if I'm awake I'd rather be working, but that formula does not play well when the body is demanding the mind's attention. Citizen of the Galaxy was the perfect diversion. And how nice it was to find this justification when I reached the penultimate page!
I grok this fully. To keep one's sanity, one MUST make room for doing what one enjoys. Peace to you!
Ah, a fellow Heinlein fan! Or at least a reader. Actually, I never did like Stranger, nor any of his adult novels, but cut my teeth on his juveniles and loved his future history series. It was fascinating to re-read Citizen and see how much he got both right and wrong in 1957. The part where the trader reaches for his "pocket calculator" was so far from reality in the 50's, but might have been written today (except that it would have been his phone). However, while computers controlled the ship, they were themselves controlled by analog means: dials, buttons, switches.
