Last night after I put Rose to bed, I thought, “We had a really fun day together.”

I offered her prunes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and she accepted. We watched Arthur together (it was a t.v. day). I nearly started crying when Arthur left his bear at the Tibble twins house, but Rose pointed out that he went back for it. I helped her find a buddy to play on the tire swing with her. We went to Carkeek park, all blue sky and vistas, and I gave her a “Mommy underdog” (pull back instead of push through, oy my aching back), I cheered when she went down the fish slide, and gave her the three minute warning on the bouncing seal. I even let her run to watch the trains go by as I strapped David into the car. She was giddy over dinner. We took a bath together, and she didn’t object when I sang her bedtime songs with David strapped to my chest. What a lovely, lovely day together.

Except, we didn’t spend the day together. She spent 9-4 at pre-school. That’s seven hours away from me. I’m not saying she should, she needs to or even wants to spend every minute of the day with me. I’m just saying when I thought of the day, I blacked out on our time apart. That was a lie.

This happened to me once before.

I went back to work full-time when Rose was fourteen months. About a month in, I was at an all day retreat with colleagues. I was standing around the breakfast table, when the Spanish teacher asked me, “So how is your daughter? You have a daughter right?”

“Oh,” I said, “She’s great, except she has to be held all the time, and she only lets me hold her.”

“Who’s holding her now?” Arline asked.

I stood there with the plastic knife in one hand and the bagel in the other and no baby in either arm. I stood there in shock. Somehow I had forgotten that as I was discussing the theoretical underpinnings of the Culture, Gender, and Global Studies department, I was not simultaneously walking around Green Lake with Rose in my arms.

I make and remake the hard choices of work, family, self. I use all my resources—the twenty minutes off during swim class, Grandma having a playdate, 27 hours of childcare—I struggle with whether I am wrong or bad to spend time away. Struggle is ok; lying is not.