I am one of those people who is not totally hating life right now.
I appreciate the down time.
I appreciate the extra time with my kids, especially Number 4 who is leaving for boarding school (and no, I’m not shipping her off — she has wanted to go for 2 years and she got a full, 4 year scholarship).
We have focused A LOT on the life skills stuff we aren’t able to spend so much time on when there is school and homework and swimming and wrestling and track and cross country.
I’m a homebody.
I am one of those people who really would be okay living in a cabin in the woods for a year.
Or ten.
But today is day fifty-five.
Fifty-five days.
For fifty-five days I have not been alone.
At all.
That’s 1,320 hours in a row of not being alone.
Okay, that’s not true.
I’ve gone grocery shopping on the past six Fridays.
I’ve been alone then.
It’s about 2 hours every time I go grocery shopping.
So I’ve had about 10 hours of alone time there.
And I exercise every day.
On the days I go for a run, I have some alone time then.
But that’s it.
From 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. I am not alone.
There are one or two or three or four or five kids awake.
And close by.
Asking what’s for breakfast.
Asking when lunch will be ready.
Asking for help with school work.
Asking if they can use the iPad a little earlier than normal.
Asking if they have to do their chores.
Asking if I will play a game with them.
Asking if they can have ice cream.
Asking if we can go for a walk.
Asking if we can do a puzzle.
Asking if I will buy them an app.
They have honestly been very well behaved for the most part.
They are lucky there are five of them here.
I’m lucky, too.
There is always someone to play with. They can play hide and seek and tag and badminton and board games and anything, really.
There is lots of noise.
Lots of happy noise.
Lots of laughter.
Lots of memories being made that I believe they will cherish when they are parents.
But there are five of them.
And they are kids.
They fight.
They argue.
They do shit to purposely piss each other off.
They whine.
They cry.
They push buttons.
They have massive, Level 10, Code RED meltdowns.
And the one who is here for all of those things is me.
It’s not just during the day.
Even though they are 8, 9, 10, 13 and 14 years old, they also wake up in the middle of the night.
When that happens, I’m the one they wake up.
No matter what.
So even once they are in bed, there is no guarantee I’ll be alone for a stretch of 6 or 8 hours.
They still have bad dreams and other stuff that wakes them up on some sort of let’s-fuck-with-mom rotation.
It’s a conspiracy.
Mom must never be alone.
I realize I am lucky for other reasons.
I live in the suburbs where I have a nice yard and we can spend as much time outside as we want to.
We don’t live in a city where we aren’t allowed to go anywhere.
But still.
I am never alone.
There is never really a break.
Even if their father is home, it’s like he’s wearing Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
He could be literally five inches away from them, but they will still climb a hundred flights of stairs (we have three in our house, but you know they’d climb a hundred) to ask me to get them something to eat or to find whatever it is they are unable to locate.
(But ask them to go pick up that thing they left on the floor that’s three feet away from them and suddenly they are unable to move).
Whether they are attempting to beat the crap out of each other or playing so nicely you have to take a picture of it and post it to Facebook as evidence that they — and you — don’t suck, it doesn’t really matter.
Because never being alone is really hard.
I love my kids.
I love them so much.
I’d slay dragons and jump in front of an oncoming bus and do whatever I had to to protect them.
I mean, I’ve already listened to them “summarize” countless books and I’ve watched them play Minecraft and I’ve sat through every torturous Disney TV show multiple times and watched dozens of stupid YouTubers who are apparently hilarious to people under the age of sixteen.
Clearly my love for them is unmatched.
When life returns to busier times and stores and gyms and pools and friend’s houses open back up, I’ll look back on these times and be grateful for the opportunities they have given us. I’ll probably only remember the good stuff.
The bad stuff will probably fade into nothingness.
And I suppose once the day comes that all the kids are back in school again, and I have a string of consecutive hours all to myself, the house will seem really empty and really quiet and really lonely and really echo-ey and really…
lifeless.
But right now?
Well, right now, sometimes it’s just really, really hard to always not be alone.
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I don’t have 5 littles, but you just wrote exactly what’s happening in my house right now too. I frequently take walks to the end of the driveway to cool off when I’m starting to melt down. I’ve already been there a couple times today!
Same! My kids are handling this so well and we have lots of open space but today I feel like I’m going to explode when they come near me 🙁 Tomorrow is another day I guess 🙂
I totally hear you! Thanks for making me understand that I am not alone! I am so waiting for the gym and pool to open!
You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s no alone time, and I miss it. I need to recharge.
One other thing: I went to boarding school and it was my own choice. And I loved it, and had an amazing, growing time there. I was inspired and motivated by the teachers and other students, and came out the better for it. I hope your girl will have as as life-changing an experience as I did, and I hope you don’t have to defend that choice to people in your life.
So true! Even though I have only 2 children, I found myself having a meltdown. I work from home 9am to 6pm and so basically have 3 jobs, kids, their school work and ‘real’ work. I am trying to get more exercise and get into the garden more. I do love my children but not having any/much alone time sucks
I only have one at home right now, but she never shuts up! OMG! She talks incessantly. It never bothered me when I got to leave the house for work and she had 15 hours of gymnastics/week. Now however? Just shut the F up!
I never knew how much I treasure my alone time until this.
Mum of Four here hearing you LOUD and CLEAR. And even when they’ve gone to bed there is a loving husband wanting much deserved attention, a listening ear, time. I don’t even get alone time on my daily jog… I have four companions as i can’t leave the kids alone, they are too small. So I have an hour in the evenings between 11 and 12 pm. And then I am KNACKERED the next and every day… 😂
It really is ok to insist on downtime everyday. We have quiet time at my house for two hours everyday. Those old enough may go outside those not old enough go to their room for quiet play or reading. I am not to be disturbed unless a kid is bleeding or on fire. And the older they get, the more blood I expect there to be. Anyone over the age of 6 can handle their own small cuts and scrapes without disturbing me.
It is totally allowed to insist on a break during the day. Employees at the job place get a lunch break where no one at work bothers them, and they get to leave work at work at 5pm. You wake up to your work, it lives with you all day, and you don’t even get to eat a meal in peace.
Unless you insist on it. It really is ok to do that.
I am feeling this way too! Except my kids have been breaking their routines and going to bed later so they’re up from 8AM-11PM! By the time I hit the sack I’m pooped! I’m working from home so the work that doesn’t get done in the mornings I do after they go to bed. Just like your kids, they wake up in the middle of the night because of nightmares, hunger, thirst etc. it just never ends. Aside from all this, I am cherishing our quality time. I have never been able to spend this much time with them in my entire life! I am so grateful to be working from home. I don’t think I want to be apart from them, the way it was before all this. I am hoping that my job approves me to work from home moving forward and we are considering homeschooling for our boys. So this has changed our lives dramatically, for the best.
I cannot adequately express how much this resonated with me. I’m woken up in the morning with “Mom?” and I fall asleep at the same time as they do so literally never alone. But I love them! But I’d pay 1 million dollars for 1 hour by myself with no responsibilities. I can dream right?
I hear you Sunni!
Dear Gods yes! I only have one son, but also have my husband’s disabled brother…and all 3 of them have health problems that make us have to be extra quarantined to keep them safe. I love them, I really do, but can someone please give me an hour to myself?
Hang in there, Monica!
I feel you. Solo mama to twin toddlers. I have not even had the alone time for “shopping” or running. They are with me 24-7. Too young to be left alone ever.
There are defnitely moments of gratitude for the extra time with them but being on all the time and working 12-14 hr days at home is very tough.
Bit everyone is healthy so we keep truding on and male the best of it. It couls be much, much worse.
You’re right!
You forgot to mention that u can’t even poop 💩 in peace!! My little one always wants to know what’s going on, even in the bathroom 🤣
Hahahahahahaaaa — yes, I shower with an audience half the time. 🙂
Lol yep, I hear you. My special needs son found me in the bathroom. He had his tablet on talk mode. He was asking for a pb &j sandwich. His dad was on the couch in the living room. He had to walk past his dad to get to me. Living the dream lol.