Audience

I just heard this conversation as I was nursing Helena before putting her down for the night (the husband is teaching a late class and is not here which makes the evening routine Almost Unbearable):

Harper: Hudson, go play with your cars! I need some TIME by MYSELF.

Hudson: (plaintive, pitiful) But I want to be with YOU.

Harper: (highly unpleasant snorty sound) HUDSON, NO. I need some quiet time by myself.

Hudson: (sad pitiful whimpering noises)

So, where in the world did she hear something like that? From me, that's where. Today during the after lunch time which used to be her nap time and is now her quiet time. She really wanted a little reading time (we've just started a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) before she had her quiet time but I just couldn't do it. It was an exhausting morning of failed potty training (at the park, so, totally my fault) with the Hudson boy and I was spent. I told her I just needed a little time to myself and I sent her off to her room. It had its intended effect, obviously. Maybe you'll think it's interesting that I have not been by myself for four and a half years now. I have been away from Harper twice--the 36 hours I was in the hospital having Hudson and the 36 hours I was in the hospital having Helena (which is the only time I have been away from Hudson). I do, once a week or so, when the kids are napping or in bed, and the husband is home, go to Target or the grocery store by myself. Occasionally, my mom will come in town so the husband and I can have a date. Every month or so I have a meal with the girls from my Bible study. I enjoy these times, perhaps too much. Depending on which book you read, the husband and I should be having some weekends away, just the two of us. But since I am still breastfeeding, this just seems like lots of work. At some point there will be time for this. And the time is not now. But I don't always do a good job of remembering how fast these Times of Great Dependence are going to pass. I try to remember to be daily thankful for my healthy children, whose needs pale in comparison to some. I try to remember how quiet were so many of my days and weeks and years when I wondered if I would ever be married; when children seemed like a hopeless dream. And yet I still lose my patience. Daily. I struggle with taking the easy way out (read: hours of tv or dvd's while I Get SOMETHING DONE). I am irate. I am fast to frustration and slow to grace. I focus on why things are HARD instead of being a creative problem solver. Instead of taking the time to teach, I take over and do it myself. And they are watching. And they ARE learning. My performance, it should be said, needs work. I am thankful in advance for those mercies, which, we are promised, are new every morning.