In Between Ennui

December 28. For those of us with kids, the holidays are effectively over. Christmas came and went and I tried to explain New Year’s to my 5-year-old. He nodded in complete understanding and then a couple of hours later, I asked him what the New Year meant and he didn’t know. “Is it going to be spring?” he asked.

Hmm, I wish…I’m still in recovery mode from a back ache and a cold, both of which came on very suddenly. I don’t know about you, but I firmly believe that I created both of these conditions in myself but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. Maybe it’s because I had this idea that I could use these next few days to get a jump on the new year. Four glorious days to catch up on projects, create new ones, and heck, even take the tree and all the lights down. Usually, when I’m tackling my projects, I have notepaper nearby for my creative ideas. Busyness keeps my left brain occupied and my right brain occasionally sneaks in with a brilliant idea.

With no movement at all, everything seems to stop. I let the kids watch too much TV today while I dozed on the couch. I got up a couple of times to offer a snack or two for them and I thought about making dinner – I really thought about it. I asked my kids what I should blog about and Ben said, “Why don’t you blog about me? How I made a diorama without even knowing what a diorama is?” Um. Okay.

And he did do that. He was busy with a cardboard box, some cars, and tape of course,always tape. He just does that. Takes a few random things and turns them into something. I have something to learn from that because I’m always looking for the rhyme and reason and I’m always doing something useful! Especially since my kids came along. As a mom, I have to take advantage of every spare moment and use it wisely and productively. There are so few moments to spare.

But then I realized that I can’t even remember when I did almost nothing for a whole day. It’s been a long time but it hit me that my kids are growing quickly. I have a 5 and 3-year-old and even though they aren’t even close to being able to make their own dinner, they have the wherewithal to leave me alone on the couch for a while.

So, maybe I need to be somewhat incapacitated to fully realize that the moments are going to come and go no matter what and that sometimes it’s okay to just lay around and let it happen around me. I’m tired and listless now and I’m not going to fight it. I don’t want so many productive moments that I miss the moments where my kids are growing.