I've been sitting here with my hands on the keyboard for twenty minutes, trying to put thoughts into sentences. Something appears to be broken between my brain and my fingers, and I was going to blame it on the holiday let down and the burden of life, but then I realized that I've been interrupted two hundred and sixteen times already, so why should I expect a coherent thought to come out?
Seriously, the turn of the year is always hard for me, and this one has been no different. And seriously, I can't sit on the couch with a computer in my lap without someone trying to pluck off a key or shut the thing down or needing me to get up again to get something or do something or see something. I've just told them both, multiple times, that they have to wait because I'm sitting right now and I'm not getting up. It's nice when they reach an age when you can actually do that. They've gone to the back of the house to entertain themselves for a few minutes. I can hear them playing out of one ear, and my radio in the kitchen out of the other. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing. This day is nice enough to give me that breath of fresh air that I'm always looking for this time of the year. It's really good for my sanity.
I started the day with exercise - hold please. A child is talking directly in the ear that was listening to quiet voices playing. It's pestering me to get up and come see the picture drying solution she has rigged up in her bedroom to dry the Valentines she making. Yes, VALENTINES. I finally had to tell her that it's a month away and I'm not worried about how she is going to pass them out to the family or when and we aren't having a party, I just want her to put them away somewhere so they aren't spread all over the kitchen floor. I just told her again that I'm not getting up. Sometimes, you just have to take a minute for yourself.
Now Dave just came upstairs, walked into the kitchen, and said, "What in the world?!" That's because the little one has been practicing with scissors and has not cleaned up his mess from the kitchen floor. And now, the little one has locked himself out of his bedroom and the big one is asking for lunch. The nerve. And how did I forget to set them up with lunch before I sat down? This means I'm going to have to get up, because even though it's Lunchable Saturday, she has already asked me three times, in the span of one minute, to help her open the stuff. Sweet - Dave just came back into the room; he can help her. I don't have to get up. I've learned that most times if you just wait long enough, they work it out themselves, but sometimes I just get up anyway to stop the calling of my name.
Sometimes I wonder how many times they say "Mama" in defined periods of time, and sometimes I think I might count just so I know, but then I don't. I realize we're at the peak right now, and the frequency will become less and less as they get older and more self-sufficient. That really doesn't make me sad, it really drives me nuts when they "Mama" me into a frenzy. But, I won't wish it away either because even though they are annoying, they are also wonderful. Their enthusiasm, their conversations with each other, the funny things they say, their laughter - all that stuff is big enough to outshine the frenzy.
They are both at the table now. One just told me, "Mama, I need help with my Capri Sun." I said, "Your father is standing in the kitchen." He said, "Father, pwease you help me with this?" Father. He's a funny one. A funny one who will always walk through the house to find me and ask me to do something, even though his father was standing in the same room.
That's motherhood, folks. It's the constant demand for time and attention, regardless of your supply of sanity. It's the constant calling of your name, the constant chatter of voices, occasional yelling, perpetual exhaustion, and the attention to the details of everyone else's life.
And, every once in a while, it's refusing to get off the couch because sometimes Mamas need a time out, too.
I only wish I had a sound proof booth to sit in for my time out.
No comments:
Post a Comment