We didn’t have a very good day today. I was mean mum – getting irritable and cranky and of course my children being normal healthy children still craved my attention and love (more so than usual). I know the antidote to this crankiness and their neediness is to give more of myself so they know that we are ok but I just didn’t have it in me today.
So I left them with husband this evening. I thought I would be racing out the door with a huge smile on my face but my two older boys were very emotional upon my leaving. I asked them why they could possibly want me around for a second longer since I was cranky and horrid. Didn’t they want to get away from me and spend tons of uninterrupted play time with their father? Apparently not.
All three of us cried, with husband and 2 year old looking on – husband a bit annoyed at the histrionics and 2 year old with no idea what was going on.
Mothers have a great amount of time, energy and love to give.
Sometimes the time slips away and we realise we didn’t spend any of it with the children. Sure the children are with us the whole day but do we spend it actually engaging with them? So we make the effort to do this the next day = to play, to laugh and just to BE with them.
Most times we are low on energy. We have simply done too much, breastfed too much, cleaned and cooked too much, worked too hard and are physically exhausted by the end of the day. So we try desperately to get a good night’s rest in order that we may be fresh again for the demands of the day.
Then (very rarely) there are times when it seems we have run of love. Of course we haven’t really run out of it -it’s just misplaced. We need to go somewhere quiet and peaceful to reflect and to search for it. It never hides for too long.
Tonight I found mine in between sipping coffee and flipping through cookbooks, home renovation books (no water features in there, sorry Susan), magazines and kids’ books at Borders. Most times I find it on my prayer mat. I found it once cleaning the room and stumbling across a baby photo.
Where do you find your love?
« Things They Don’t Tell You – # 1 The In Tune with his Feelings Child »
I find myself feeling recharged w/a night out. I go to Borders like you did and sip coffee and flip thru books or I like to go work out. I’ve experienced the same feeling of just having nothing left and still the kids want more. Once these boys of ours are older and don’t need us as much, i hope we won’t regret these “get away” days.
Keep it up, you are a great mom!!
sometimes its VERY hard to be a mommy.
This is a great post, and one I can totally relate to. I think it’s the intensity, the in-your-face nature of our relationship to our small children that is so draining. Which is why even five minutes apart can be all it takes to re-charge the love-o-metre.
I know at the end of the day, when I feel like I’ve had a clingy baby velcroed to me all day, and I have to literally peel him off me for bed, and I have been listening to a very chatty 4 year old talk and talk and TALK, and need feedback on every sentence, and I just want to scream “please, just STFU! I cannot hear anymore. I cannot stand one more person needing one more thing from me” and i feel utterly depleted.
And yet, like you said, just a little bit of time apart, and the balance re-aligns itself. The patience and the love and understanding returns via the very steep concentration gradient. Sometimes it’s not even for me getting away from them all together. Sometimes, it’s just watching them play, unaided and un-needing in the backyard, or the ever-popular, watching them sleep. Their neediness is suspended, and some how, that second gives me the space to be able to be needed again.
Frankly…I’m desperate to find it somewhere…but can’t seem to find it anywhere!
I’m in the middle of a love finding day! It really is bliss, I went to the psychologist, then to the op shop and bought several design magazines…a little out of date, but then, so am I!
then I ate a packet of chocolate biscuits (perhaps that is how I gained over twenty kilos in two years!)And now I am heading to the sofa for a couple of hours of uninterrupted drawing.
If the weather cools, I’ll stand in the garden and twiggle my toes in the dirt.
then i will head off to pick up my kiddies from childcare and lo and behold, actually be able to enjoy them…inshaAllah!
Take care and make sure that you get lots of time to go to Borders.
wonderful post and shazia’s comment scared me just a little bit.
i’m still at the stage where i don’t need to find the love just yet, it’s still right here where i can feel it squeezing and squeezing my heart until i’m breathless with it.
:/
i’m scared.
First time here, hopped over from Mona’s blog. Lovely post! Like you said, I find the love when my daughter’s napping. I catch up with friends or I just read a book or do something really inane.