They see me. The real me. The one I wish I could hide behind a clean house (which it almost never is anyway) and a fresh outfit that looks close enough to being fashionable that I can pass as a normal woman of the world. Not the mostly stay at home, part time working, babysit swapping, kind of homeschooling, wishes she had a vacation coming person that I am.
They see me when I tell them off when they deserve it, but I probably still shouldn’t have. When the screaming, pushing and whining has me wanting to hand in my two weeks notice and find a job with better hours and less hostile working conditions. When I send them both to their rooms and hide in the kitchen with my chocolate. The same chocolate my daughter picked out for me for Christmas because she told her father that she knew I’d like it.
I wonder if they see the way I look at them when I think they are asleep and mostly remember the good moments of the day, even if the bad outweighed the good. I hope they see when I drop everything to give them my love, even when the dishes are overflowing the sink onto the counter and I haven’t planned a thing for dinner. When I let her snuggle with me as I try to get just a few more minutes of work done. When I read him four bedtime stories, just because I love having him in my lap, even though bedtime is usually Daddy’s domain.
They see me. All of me, even the parts I wish I could hide. Because they know my buttons and push them better than most anyone else. I just hope that occasionally they get a glimpse of the good things, the fun me. The part of that is deep inside trying desperately to get out if only I could get the weight of these everyday struggles off of me. A good night’s sleep, a few hours to myself and a quiet dinner with my husband would cure most of what ails me. But they can’t understand that. But I hope they’ll remember more of the happy than the ugly, just as I do with them.
Aw, how sweet! I remember those days…especially the days I failed. But I got up and tried again, I apologized for my bad behavior, I learned about do-overs. And now my kids remember the good times: the reading-extra-stories-on-the-lap times. Hang in there! I can tell that most off all, they see the love!