I don’t spend much time away from my girls. Occasionally I’ll slip away to the grocery
store while they’re home with Daddy, and Miss Jenny has been coming two or
three afternoons a month to hang out with the girls for a couple of hours… but probably 95% of their
waking hours, we are together.
Usually my “time off” is pretty measured. I don’t have to speed walk through the aisles
of the grocery store, but it’s far from a leisurely afternoon. I often find myself thinking, “I wish I had
an extra 30 minutes to browse through the craft store,” or, “I wonder if Hubby
would smell coffee on my breath if I stopped for a quick cup.” I could always blame it on impossibly long
check-out lines and price checks, right?
It’s not that I don’t love spending time with my girlies,
but “alone time” is so very precious.
It’s such a break to be able to really sort through the
pineapples for the very best one, instead of grabbing the one on top. The girls are relatively well-behaved
shoppers, but “browsers”, they’re far from being. Certainly I could take them to the coffee
shop, but I’d be doling out bites of a muffin and making sure they held their
cups of milk straight and sat facing the table…no perusing a magazine in a comfy
lounge chair by the fireplace.
Last week I had a quick grocery store run to make, and the
girls stayed home with Daddy. I didn’t
have many things on my list, but it was the day before the July 4th
holiday, and I feared the store would be pretty nutty.
I made it through my grocery list without incident – proud to
have scored The Perfect Pineapple – and I was in the check-out line. In the line next to me there was a mom
shopping with a little girl, who looked about three years old. The mom was chatting with the little girl,
and then the older lady behind them joined their conversation.
Suddenly I had this pang…”I wish my girls were here!” I wanted to be having an engaging conversation
with them! I wanted the nice older lady
to talk to us, too!
And then, on the way home, I was listening to the
radio. Our very favorite song, “Hey,
Soul Sister”, came on. And I had another
pang as I sang every word. The girls
love this song! It doesn’t feel right to
be singing it without them!
It’s not that I’m considering limiting my “alone time”…no, I
definitely need a little dose of that from time to time. And I’ll gladly take a solo trip to the craft
store any day.
But this little experience was a very sweet reminder for
me. Even though I occasionally scream to
myself, “I NEED A BREAK!”…and even in the immediate afterglow of finding The
Perfect Pineapple…I so enjoy being with my baby girls.
4 comments:
So well said girl! We need the alone time, but we do miss them so much. I find myself sitting at work., mind racing with work stuff and all of a sudden I would miss them so much.
I do the same thing... EVERY TIME. I'm usually so happy to be getting out by myself that I practically skip to the car. And then I miss them a dozen times while away.
Such is life. And, the reason why I am going to pack as much smothering bonding time into next year {my LAST year with them all to myself} as possible!
And, I bet with as brilliant as your littles are, you can have them sizing up and picking out the perfect pineapple for you soon! ;) Until then, skip to the store and revel in your 'me' time and then hurry home to share your pineapple!
This is exactly how I feel most of the time. I feel so excited to get to do something on my own but then something ALWAYS happens that reminds me of the girls and I instantly want to be back with them. I even feel sad when I put them to bed at night. I wonder if our parents felt like this too? :)
OH, I've definitely had those same feelings at times! Days when I'm soooo ready and anxious to run out the door for something for myself...but then feel sad about missing bedtime or something funny they told Daddy, etc...
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