Seek and Find

This morning I started a super covert game of hide and seek with the kids.  I hid, didn’t tell them, and managed to rest unnoticed for almost 20 full minutes.  Princes Sofia and Jake and the Neverland Pirates babysat. 

I’m burnt out on all the needing right now, but I’m mom so there’s really no way around it.  This week the needs have felt super big and my inability to fulfill them all left me facing today with dread.  I love the rain and imagined today being a make-a-fort-and-read day, but even that couldn’t satisfy the masses all at once.  And getting everyone out of the house would ensure wet socks, and heaven forbid any child in my house should ever have to stand around in wet socks for 2.6 seconds.  Oh the humanity!

In the past I would have felt like my little hiding game was a parent fail, but I’m past that.  My kids are seeing the non-Pinterest life, the messy, the adults who don’t actually have super powers and are living in the moment they find themselves, conjuring up every ounce of strength to just not lose their crap when someone asks for cheese 14 times in a row.  They are living through relationships where conflict and big feelings are a real thing, as is everyone wanting to handle their feelings differently (Wren cries when happy, sad, awake, asleep.  I cry when I’m bleeding profusely.  This has been an issue for us as I think she is a drama queen and she is convinced I am a droid.). 

Early on in parenting, I thought no conflict was the goal.  Now I realize that would equal zero real life prep.  Handling conflict correctly, walking through the crazy together?  Apologizing when we don’t handle conflict correctly and we’re all a little fed up with the crazy?  Those are real life skills, and we’re doing them every day in this house. 

So I only hide from those responsibilities on occasion, and I got busted when Asher walked into the room and started searching.  I unintentionally made eye contact and then she laid on top of me like my side job is being a mattress.  I crawled out from under the covers and marched back into the needing, some run-of-the-mill and some that seems over my head.

The rain is still falling but I anticipate we will have to venture out this weekend, extra socks packed just in case.  Tonight the plan is to have a mani/pedi plus reading night with the big kids crashing in our bed past bed time hours.  I’m looking forward to it, and I’m also selfishly coming to terms with the idea that part of my alone time will be usurped by overly tired children stealing my pillow.  It’s a mix. 

Until things let up, we’ll just be together waiting out the storm.