Separation Anxiety

I've noticed, as a mom, that there are definite times when I desperately need to separate myself from my kids and FEEL like I'm my own person. Tonight was one of those nights. Jeremy has been working nights during the week, and while we had an AWESOME family weekend (time at friends' houses, swimming at the lake, etc.), it's Monday again, and I feel like a single parent. After supper, I loaded everyone up and we headed to a nearby gym for some much-needed "separation time".

Unfortuntely, they weren't providing childcare tonight, so my plan of taking my frustration out on the nearest treadmill fizzled. But we headed to the basketball courts, where we could all run around, shoot hoops, and just generally enjoy our own separate identities. It was SO fun, and mutually enjoyed by all! I even loosened up enough to swing my kids in circles by their arms, faster, faster, faster, so fast we almost took flight!

When we were getting ready to leave, my four-year-old, who is seriously tiny, came up to me with a sad look on her face and said, "Mommy, why am I so small?!" And I said, "What do you mean?!" She said, "My body...it's so small!" and I said, "Baby, are you feeling small tonight?" and she sadly nodded her head. Oh! Heart breaking! I tried to assure her that she would eventually grow bigger, but that's not much comfort to a wee preschooler.

When we got home just now, I was putting her in bed, and she was again bemoaning the fact that she was so little. I tried the whole "Guess what?! When you sleep, your body GROWS!" (it's true, you know!). But she put me in my place with a tearful, "but I'm not going to be bigger in the morning!". My goodness...sometimes, you want to distance yourself so far from your children that you're on different continents, and then other times, you want to draw them so close that they squish into you and you absorb them.

It's the latter times...the times you want to pull them so near...that make it all worth it. The prayer of my heart is: "GOD! Please don't let me say something that I will regret during the times my heart is far away." While I treasure my time apart, my time to remember who I am as an individual, I treasure even more the times I remember why I love being my kids' mother.