A Life Unscheduled

Thanks to a week of illness and the beginning of spring break, I've had a taste, once again, of life at home, all day, with my children. On this particular Friday, it is snowing here if you can believe it. I'm still a bit queasy and exhausted from a nasty bout of something I'd hoped our family had this year sucessfully avoided when winter officially ended and we were all still standing and fever free. But alas...

Anyhow, I awoke to a day with no plans whatsoever, no built in time eaters like errands or jaunts to the park. I had no expectations, no deadlines were upon us, the morning was wide open - a thought that both frightened and delighted me simultaneously.

"Could you help me with this, mom?"

"Can we make collages out of magazines?"

"Can we sit together in the rocking chair and just be?"

Yes, yes, and yes. Our activities were seamless, one naturally flowing into another as imaginations sparked and new ideas materialized. This pace, slow and timeless, was at one point my more consistent reality but then recently its been rush and hurry, "You're late!", "What do mean you can't find your gym shoes?"

"It's nice of you to do this with me," said Priscilla, as we cut and colored construction paper, "usually you're too busy for this kind of thing"

ouch.

You'd think that it would be better, more fulfilling to be without them for much of the day; I told myself for two years that it was. It stays cleaner around here, I get more writing done, but then they come home either gloom faced or irritable, secretive with experiences and conversations I am clueless about. "Do your homework." I am the bad guy. I am mentally, physically, and emotionally unavailable as two-year-old Mary is now up from her nap and needs to held and comforted throughout her transition from drowsiness to alertness, dinner must be thought about and assembled, squabbles begin immediately and I countdown the hours until bedtime.

I miss them, and am presently marveling at their ability to work together when they have to - building blanket forts, pouring juice for one another, playing peacefully without the stress of bus schedules, peer expectations, and timed math facts on their young shoulders. I love reading Ramona the Brave with my daughter, having the freedom to then sit quietly while she reads a chapter back to me, sounding out words one syllable at a time. I let go of the rigid uptightness forbidding boys from being boys, and two brothers who often struggle for a way to see eye-to-eye wrestled joyously on the office floor while I smiled and didn't stop them. None of it is easy, but I think I'll take the messiness of a life interwined with theirs and leave the sterililty of a vacant house, a seperate existence, behind me.