Ups and downs

I’m weary. It’s been too long without a day off, and I need some time and space. The last few weekends, instead of being the respite that I generally ensure them to be, have been filled with activity from one end to the other. Christmas doings, mostly.

The children are fine, doing their toddler stuff. Most of it cute, some of it exasperating, but all in all, things are muddling along just fine. But I find it harder to take a lot of fun and satisfaction from their doings. Mostly, I’m bored.

Which is okay. Every mother gets bored from time to time. Adorable as they may be, they’re not adults. They’re not mentally stimulating. Well, deciding on a strategy to deal with the food-hurling at meals certainly involves the brain. Helping to enrich their vocabulary, training them in good manners and showing them how to be kind — all those take a certain type of brain work. No doubt about it.

But it doesn’t involve all the brain, and it is very, very repetitious. Even when I see progress, it gets boring. When the progress comes too slowly, it is boring. But the problem is not with them; it is with me. I know it. I am just weary.

I’m ready for that holiday! A little time off, a little time to get ahead on other projects, time to go for long walks with my sweetie, time to read, read, read. Between now and then there will be a party or two for the social stuff. I long to be away from all this, and into something else, just for a while.

Anna and Emily are sitting across the table from me as I type, eating their lunches. Suddenly Emily throws an arm around Anna’s neck.

“Kiss?” Emily asks. They kiss. “Hug?” They hug.

“You are my best friend, Anna? You are my best friend?”

“Yeah.”

They hug again.

Then again, maybe it’s not so bad.