Day 5 of solo parenting, and of steering this ship solo at work too – Gimli and I are sharing directorship of this branch of the church-based social service agency we work for and it’s definitely daunting to be at the helm without him.
In terms of the parenting part of it, the day-to-day has been fine but the nights are long and fractured and I’m feeling it.
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting, a circle of pastors holding one another up to the light, and in an opportunity for sharing about surrender and promises in our lives I was hit with a flood of emotion as I realized my need in the moment to release my children into that light. I confess that I cried, then and there, but that since that moment it’s been easier to let them go each morning, and I think they feel that too – somehow they have found their way to go with greater freedom and ease.
This morning the kids went to school in bright blue sweatsuits trimmed in yellow, the school logo embroidered on the front and their names embroidered on the inside of each pocket. They wore brand new rain boots – hers were ladybugs, his were Spiderman – and in their little backpacks were rain ponchos (Cars and Winnie the Pooh), change of clothes, crocs. In her pocket was a rubber ant she chose as her security object for their farm field trip today. I almost died from the cuteness.
Last night Oz sang to me in Spanish, to my thorough delight, a song about a green horse that rides a bike and wears glasses. Then he told me what it means in English. The two of them were playing ‘school,’ rolling playdough snakes and pretending to play miniature guitars.
I fall asleep sandwiched between them, waking every 2-3 hours when Oz talks through a dream or kicks me or asks to nurse. Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep again, my brain squirreling through thought-nuts, burying and un-burying them to try to hide them somewhere else. Personnel issues. Budgets. A thousand little problems.
Right now I’m going to see if I can squeeze in a nap between meetings.
Movable Type 