The kids are home this weekend, all of them. It’s been a while since all three bedrooms were full (Christmas?) and there has been laughter and silliness in the house. I went to sleep last night with the comfort of all those people breathing so close by. I didn’t realize how much I missed having a full house until it was full again.
The kids are home for Greek Easter, so that means they will all be spending time with their dad at some point today. I of course made too much food, and I can only hope it won’t go to waste. By tomorrow, it will just be me and my youngest again. The house will be quiet all over again.
I’m still getting used to this somewhat empty nest – there is still one child living with me, after all – but these young adults aren’t really here to spend time with their old mom (or their old dad for that matter.) They come home to be together for a little bit, to be fed something that reminds them of their childhood, to sleep in the spaces where they grew up, and see their friends. I’d love it if their only impetus was to spend time with me, but that isn’t the case. They have so much else happening in their lives and parents aren’t really part of it. I envy the moms whose daughters and sons actually want to do things with them. Some of it is my fault – I haven’t actually thought about stuff we could do together other than eat.
What’s really going on here
The kids are home – I’ve been looking forward to them being together this weekend under my roof, but it’s not happening the way I envisioned. I tend to have expectations that don’t meet reality. I had hoped that they would tell me about their lives beyond the superficial. Nope.
So I am cooking things that will ultimately be leftovers and feeling sorry for myself. My oldest child left to hang out with a friend of his, my daughter and her partner are holed up in her room, and my youngest child stayed up all night, as he always does, and is sleeping now. I am passing the time by writing out this woe-is-me post so I can get the sadness out of my system before we sit down for our Easter luncheon. They will have dinner with their dad tonight and I will be home alone figuring out what to do with all this food they didn’t eat.
Postscript
We made it to Monday, and now I’m back to just the one kid. The other two made it back to their respective places safely earlier today. I suppose this is the natural progression of families – the kids grow up, begin to live their own lives that doesn’t include the parent(s). They did spend time together with each other – and that’s important. Maybe in the next decade, they want to spend time with their old mom.
