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Kid Time

My kids go to their Dad's today, taking with them all their chatter, busyness and energy and leaving a silence in their wake.  Admittedly, sometimes the peace and quiet is refreshing... but as Friday stretches into Saturday and Saturday into Sunday, that silence becomes a heavy stillness.  I haven't found a way to transform those kidless weekends into quiet moments for myself, I'm working on it.

Thankfully I work all weekend, 12 hour midnight shifts nonetheless, so the days pass pretty quickly.  But in those waking hours when the stillness pervades, their absence is so palpable.  It makes our time together a little more precious.  I find myself looking at those trying childhood moments with softer eyes, with a new appreciation for all the trips and trials of growing up and a little less annoyance.

At the risk of sounding like one of those old biddies looking through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia, everything is underscored with a new perspective of how limited our time together is and how I'll never get these days back.  So why was I so annoyed that instead of wanting to be dragged around on errands, my 5 year old would rather be home twirling in the kitchen orbiting around me as I fix dinner?  I get it, and the truth is - so would I.  So let's power through some of this extraneous stuff that used to seem so important so we can get to what really matters - me and you, together.

Even though those old biddies always seem to remind us to cherish those childhood moments in the midst of chaos as they look on from their over-simplified-kid-free lives maybe, just maybe, there's some wisdom in those words.


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