I miss my kids so much. This two weeks is the longest I’ve ever been without them. Not that I’m complaining at all– I’m not. It was so much needed. Relaxation. Rejuvenation. Some time to slow down and reflect on the last six months or so, on what we’ve done and how far we’ve come.
But two weeks without their sweet little voices, their gorgeous faces… towards the end of it, I am craving them. Missing them with such an intensity it takes my breath away and brings tears to my eyes.
We meet my mum, kids in tow, at a Macca’s half way between Melbourne and Sydney. They don’t see me at first, they’re so involved in playing, running around with the bigger kids they’ve met in the restaurant playground. For a minute or two I just watch, marvelling at them. My two little beings who are so much mine, but exist separately to me. I wonder what revelations they’ve had, what little life lessons they’ve learned while I have not been present. I wonder if they actually have grown an inch or two while they’ve been away, or if that’s just the power of seeing them, really seeing them, without the preconceptions that come with being around them all the time.
Then they spot me, and it’s all “Mummy, mummy, mummy!!” and small sweaty bodies throwing themselves at my chest and I don’t have enough arms and can’t squeeze them as close as I would like to. They hang off me– sitting in my lap, playing with my hair, whispering spitty secrets into my ear at a volume that carries far enough so they’re not secrets at all.
And oh my, it’s lovely. I soak them up, my little people, as stories of where they’ve been and what they’ve done burble into the air and fill the space around me. They talk over each other, argumentative in their excitement to tell mummy everything, to fill in the gaps of what I have missed.
Within an hour, they’re driving me insane. The spotlessly clean house is trashed within twenty minutes.
And it doesn’t matter, not even a little bit, not even at all. They are mine and I am theirs and I’m a lucky, lucky woman- I spend my time with the two most special little people in the world.
It’s a blessing and a reprieve from my own dark thoughts. I appreciate them now, more than ever. I suck the loveliness from them, and use it to start rebuilding my self.
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A good friend once said to me that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can find your way back up again.
I hope this has been your rockbottom Lori. Best wishes in finding your way back to the surface.
” I wonder what revelations they’ve had, what little life lessons they’ve learned while I have not been present.”
Must be these damn onions I’ve been peeling again!
Such a warm and fuzzy post, this one. Fills me with the feelgoods. The old Lori, back. Yay.
Two weeks is a long time! I think a lot about people I know who do FIFO work and how they’re away from their partners, families, kids, pets…all of that for 2 or 3 or more weeks at a time. I just don’t know how they do it.
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“I suck the loveliness from them, and use it to start rebuilding my self.”
It’s not a tear, I must have just poked myself in the eye somehow. I SWEAR!
So glad the holiday was what you needed and just as glad that you have your little pumpkins back!
Whoa, Molly! recently posted…The Draw of the Hometown
My monkey will be a legal adult on Sunday.
I have spent a large portion of the day today getting pictures organized for her to turn into the yearbook staff…baby pictures all the way up to the present.
I am by turns so incredibly proud and sooooo sad at what is slipping away from me (though in truth, that’s been happening for the last couple of years)
Looking at old snap shots, I can SMELL that sweaty-kid-just-off-the-playground smell that she used to have.
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D’awww =) Glad you survived playdate!