Full moon night unleashed the wailing and sobbing monsters at my house tonight. Bedtime took 1.5 hours to complete, and that doesn't even count bath time. Solo parenting this eve.
After singing the millionth song to my son, and offering up a silent prayer of thanks that my daughter in the next room was quiet and hopefully sleeping, I laid there in silence with my son, too pooped to move.
No rushing out of the room hoping he doesn't cry and beg for just one more song please.
No cutting the bedtime routine short and hightailing it out of there before he has time to protest.
No feelings of irritation of all the crap I have to do now that my kids are finally in bed.
Nope. For some crazy reason I just lied there. And my chatty son just lied there in silence. And it was a nice moment.
Then you know what happened. Some good honest conversation started to unfold between me and my son. It was a nice moment of connection between us.
We talked of dreams and nightmares. He has been coming and snuggling with me more over the last two weeks, so somethings has been on his mind. He shared with me, after prodding some of his scariest dreams. One he has had three times! What could be keeping my sweet 5-year-old awake at night, I thought? And how have I missed the chance to talk to him about it yet. Three times the same dream, the scariest of dreams?!
Life. It gets in the way.
Or maybe it just gets trickier to pull classified information out of kids as they get older? Surely it will only get worse with more and more technology competing with their attention.
I have to get better at creating safe, unhurried moments.
And I will try not to beat myself up for trading in all the lost moments of connection I traded in for rushing out of the kid's bedroom doing a little happy dance and diving into the arms of something sweet or savory.
After talking more about nightmares, and after my son told me his reoccurring one, he looked so visibly relieved. Sweet boy was dreaming about his sister getting hurt. The peace on his face as I sang him a hundred om namaha shivayas and he slipped softly into slumber was priceless.
Namaste
Good for you Sam, stopping to smell the roses. You are right, life does get in the way! Great post!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this. It took me back to those moments with my kids when they were tiny. I savored those times then, and I try to savor those moments now. Inspires me to keep on striving to create those "safe unhurried moments" even as they get older. Thank you!
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