Parenting Guilt

This week has been rather stressful. It started off so well but Jack (aged 2.9) came home from nursery on Monday with a slight temperature. I didn't think much of it as he's always a bit hot but by Tuesday there was no escaping the inevitable.
The dreaded lurgy was here.

5am Tuesday morning I was awaken by a pitiful wailing combined with a horrible retching sound. My little boy was hot enough to heat the entire flat for the whole of winter and he could barely keep his eyes open.
I dosed him up with calpol and settled him back to sleep in my bed. Closed my eyes and then.....
"mama mama mama" followed by giggles.
Alexandra was awake. Perfectly healthy and wanting to play (toddler speak for undivided attention, don't you even think about housework when you could be building towers of blocks for a 16 month old to gleefully knock down)

And so it began. The week of not knowing who's needs to meet first. A week of trying in vain to get a doctors appointment whilst wrestling 3 months worth of study notes out of a toddlers mouth and trying in vain to get a spoonful of calpol down a squirming boy.

Then the guilt sets in. Surely an hour or three of nick junior won't hurt if it gives me time to catch up on the housework and comfort my son.
Or that I gave in and let said son have a cupcake for breakfast yesterday as I was so relieved he wanted to eat.
I spent any free time frantically batch cooking pasta sauces, cottage pies and banana bread but he wouldn't eat these. In a desperate attempt to get him to eat I broke out the turkey dinosaurs and chips.

Cue more guilt. And then some more when after days of trying to get Jack to eat home cooked healthy meals he devoured the junk from the freezer in seconds.

Parenting, I've decided is nothing like the books said it would be.
The daily battles of conscience start from the moment they arrive.
Breast or bottle?
Sling or cry it out?
Nursery or pre-school?
Work or stay at home?
Hummus or biscuits?

I've decided that I'm no longer beating myself up about not being a touchy feely earth mother type.
Whilst I admire those that can do it, it just isn't me. Some days I will play for hours, others I'll chuck them some paint and let them figure it out.
I give them good food, it's up to them to eat it.
They have unconditional love but they'll still get told off when it's needed.

There's many different parenting philosophy's yet people seem to neglect what is, in my opinion, the most important.
You know your children. The parenting gurus in the pages of the book don't. You known if they need a 45 minute nap in a dark room with no comfort. You also know if they don't.

Parenting isn't about looking in a book or an online forum for the answer. It's about trusting that you know what's best and that the occasional biscuit isn't going to create out of control obese children who rampage through towns destroying bakeries.
Hopefully.