When I sat down to breakfast with my kiddo this morning, she looked a little surprised. I realized why: For the past week, we hardly saw each other, not to mention share a meal. My absentee mothering — as I’ve called it during the few moments this week when working mom guilt kicked in stronger than usual — was due to the insanity going on at work.

Early in the week most of us realized that something BIG was on the horizon. Mid-week, some of the management changes were evident and we’d gotten an invite to an all-hands meeting for our group, to be attended by a super-senior manager. By Thursday morning, we were part of a significant corporate re-org and trying to figure out what it all meant for the group and for each of us individually. The usual office politics picked up steam and I think I literally spent 48 hours in a row talking to dozens of my colleagues.

Wow.

Here are the good news: The corporate re-org is great, our new senior manager is completely awesome, and I still have a job (as do most of my colleagues.)

The bad news: I am so completely wiped out and exhausted and what I really need is to sleep for the next few days. But not being around for almost a week is causing me major separation anxiety from my daughter, which means two days of sleep are just a nice idea.

I mentioned to a colleague of mine, also a working mom, that I was feeling like a total absentee mom this week and she told me that it’s a good idea to completely shift the balance towards either work or being a mom from time to time. I think it’s a totally healthy and realistic way of thinking, but I’m having a hard time actually believing it. When I rolled in at midnight last night — after the festivities and various celebrations of our changes, including a great dinner with my new boss — my daughter started to cry. I went to her room and quieted her down. This morning I asked her why she was crying and she told me that the garage door woke her up, she knew I came home and cried when I didn’t come to wake her and kiss her.

Hello heartbreak and working mom guilt. However much I know she is totally fine and my husband was great as the primary parent this week, this was probably the last thing I wanted to hear and I still feel sad thinking about it. My hope is that our living room Abba dance party and cookie making planned for this afternoon will help me feel less guilty.

Do you feel a lot of guilt when work sucks you in?