Week 32 Review: Bugs Can’t Tell Time

This week. It’s flown by. And now the weekend is almost over, made an hour shorter by the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. Time is just jumping along at a dizzying pace. Kind of makes me nervous.

My daughter’s getting glasses, my son looks huge, and I can’t seem to keep track of the months or years anymore. Poor timing for a clock change.

I’m having trouble remembering to take photos of the kids each day. I catch them about 50% of the time, and about 75% of the pictures I take are of the obligatory variety: “there. I’ve taken their photos today.” Not all of it’s forgetting. Some of it’s not wanting to get out the camera because I know I’ll just be attacked by my son wanting to see the “Baby! Baby!” on the little screen. My daughter did the same thing at his age (and for about a year and a half after), except she would always demand to “See it! See it!” If every picture is going to be an extreme closeup (or one of a crying child being pulled away from the camera by his well-meaning sister), I’d just as soon leave the camera on the counter (or the desk or in the diaper bag or on the seat of the car or wherever it is I’ve left it this time).

I’m not making note of their cute actions, either, at least not on paper. Like today. My husband was folding clean diapers and I was working on lasagna when our son brought his beloved The New Adventures of Curious George to me to read to him.

“Ga! Ga!” he requested, which is his pronunciation of “George.”

“Oh, Honey!” I said. “Mommy’s busy. Sister will read to you. Ask Sister to read to you.”

He toddled into the living room and sat down on the floor with his book in front of the couch where his sister was lounging with her own book.

“Read me!” I heard him demand of his sister. And she complied, reading all about George’s visit to the chocolate factory.

And then there’s my daughter. The recent warm weather has brought the box elder bugs out of dormancy. She spends a great deal of time collecting them and stowing them in her bug catcher with leaves from the groundcover that never seems to die back, even under a foot of snow. Each morning, she releases the bugs from the day before and gathers new ones. When she finishes collecting them, she always washes her hands because she doesn’t like them to smell like box elder bugs.

I didn’t write any of this cuteness down.

Goofiness has been coming easier for me, as has sitting on the floor and interacting with the little monkeys.

Despite my sporadic adherence to my resolutions, I’ve been surprised to find that my overall feeling about my kids is positive. Of course I always love them, even when they annoy me. But this past week, I really, really have enjoyed being with them. Which is pleasant.

I like enjoying their company. It’s something I could hardly imagine about a year ago when things were really tough. I found their presence tedious, and I felt imprisoned by my mother role. Really, this is part of why I started this Happiness Project in the first place. I felt embarrassed and somehow wrong, bad, because I was wishing away the hours until my husband returned home and I could have some time away from the kids. And it was never enough time away to leave me feeling enthusiastic about being with them all the next day again.

Enjoying being with them has been a relief. They really are incredible little kiddos. They deserve their mother’s happiness. And I think I do, too.