I mean seriously? What is it about children that then seem to never, and I mean NEVER feel the need to sleep when it is dark outside? I mean sure they are good at sleeping randomly in the middle of the afternoon or on car rides, not when you are planning on them sleeping though, but they seem to have the ability to take a nap whenever.

But at night, when you want to sleep that seems to be a completely different thing. And one they can’t seem to manage. I have four kids and two of them have been good sleepers since infancy and two of them, not so much.

Right now (and I am not trying to make any changes because we are in the middle of moving) my girls all go up to bed at the same time at night, usually around 8:30. We don’t do nightly baths, we don’t necessarily read bed time stories (though we have been reading Harry Potter aloud for a while now we are still 150 pages away from finishing the Order of the Phoenix) we just say good night and send them upstairs. Yes it then takes them half an hour to brush their teeth and do whatever else they have decided they need to do before going to bed, and some nights we have to get involved and remind them.

And some nights they come back down the stairs multiple times, though in the last few nights it has only been once or twice. But they still need to come down at least once.

My almost 12 year old is dealing with the stress of home-buying by starting out the night in her bed and then moving to a nest she has made on the floor at the bottom of our bed around about 1 am in the morning. Most of the time my husband and I sleep through it and apparently she does as well, because she often seems confused as to how she got there the next morning.

My youngest likes to stall the longest about actually getting into her bed, though most of the time she seems to fall asleep reasonably quickly, but she most certainly likes to dictate the stories they tell each other, or the songs they sing or whatever the fuck else they do before actually surrendering to sleep.

My middle two daughters are sleeping in more lately. Which is fine since we are homeschoolers I really don’t care that much. It only becomes problematic if my eldest thinks we should read Harry Potter at breakfast and I refuse to read it if not everyone is up. I also refuse to allow her to wake her sisters up.

I know all of this is going to change soon. We are going to move from a 3 bedroom house to a four bedroom house with dedicated office space for me to be in the morning while they are still probably sleeping. They will have more space in the two bedrooms they get, and there is always an adjustment period while everything finishes getting moved in and we finish unpacking. Since we have a full basement I am hoping most of the boxes can go in the basement and then that way we don’t feel like all of the new house is in chaos as we unpack one box at a time and put things away.

I am also deluding myself that this will mean that I will be able to sort and put away the diaspora that has happened after living 4 years in this house and that I will be able to put like with like more easily. That and 12 closets should help a lot 🙂

Yesterday morning I started nodding off while waiting for my computer to do a massive update. I had already gone on a 2 mile walk in the brisk morning air but I was more than ready to shut my eyes for a little while. This may be because my coping mechanism in times of stress is to sleep as much as I can when I can’t do anything else. Or it could just be I am a mother of four children one of which moves into our bedroom every night which is bound to be disturbing my sleep on some level.

However my kids kept coming to talk to me about this that or the other thing so finally I had to give up on the whole being able to doze any more. I envy old people who can just drift off and then wake back up again, over and over, as a mother that sounds like a luxurious vacation to me.

To just have a day of dozing. I don’t think it will happen in the next decade, because heaven forbid my kids manage to feed themselves for a few hours, but it is nice to dream about, and hope for.

Of course by that time my sleep will have been disrupted for so long I won’t actually know what it looks like to have a normal sleep pattern again. And that will be that.

But maybe I should just try and sneak in a bit more sleep in this time of stress. I often feel like that adage of sleep when the baby sleeps, while helpful and unhelpful (because occasionally you want to have a few waking moments without the baby) should be true even when your babies are long and full of elbows and knees and no longer babies. You should sleep when they sleep.

We should declare days off to just be lie in your bed and doze days, you can read a book or color in your coloring book but let your dad and I get some sleep. We do carve out mornings and afternoons like this. It usually only happens because we threaten to be having sex, which is true sometimes but more often than not we are simply catching up on sleep, because that is actually what we need more sometimes.

But seriously why the fuck won’t kids just go to sleep?

Going and coming, we are like tides in the lives of our children. We are always either coming or going because when we are actually there, when we are staying with them we just become those pieces of things taken for granted, that safety, that security that everything will be fine because my mother is here.

It is only when we have to leave, when we have to have a few minutes of time to ourselves, or go and work at or job or any other reason that suddenly they realize how much they need us, because now we are gone. That firm foundation that they are attached to because they grew inside of us or because we have become their living breathing security blanket, because we are their everything and often they can not really see us as a separate from them. When we go it is like a major earthquake in their lives.

The ground beneath their feet shift. Even if this happens all the time at scheduled intervals. Even if we have warned them ahead of time. Even if they are staying with family or friends or something they really truly enjoy, we are still leaving them in their minds. Every single time.

I have been the full time working parent and I have been the default stay at home what do you mean you would ever leave me parent.

I have been both of those things and honestly they both have lovely shit sandwiches to eat. I don’t think either is better than the other, they all hurt when you need to walk away when you are going.

And the coming, when you come back from being away, whether it was for half an hour or 3 days, there is always much that needs to be done. Hugs and kisses, lots of talking and snuggling. Or if you have a preteen or teenager lots of ignoring ans silent treatment while they let yo know that they didn’t appreciate you were gone by ignoring you when you come back.

Meanwhile you might need to reconnect with your partner. And if you are a single mom there is probably at least a caretaker you need to check in with. Or they may be so excited to leave that it feels a bit like bringing eh baby home from the hospital and now suddenly you are abandon and alone with this child(ren).

And it can feel like it takes a while for your kids to settle back in, to trust that you are staying home (and maybe you aren’t able to stay at home for a while, maybe you do have work the next day or another reason to be away at night or on a weekend) so much longer than you think it will take.

They become clingy or grumpy or just turn up every time you turn around and need your attention. It can make the your transition back to daily life a little harder than you were expecting. Especially if you are tired as traveling often makes one more tired than we expect no matter how many times we do it.

But from your kid’s perspective it is all about them, because that is what they need to be like to insure their survival to adulthood. And you just left them even if it was only to run to the grocery store for 30 minutes, you just abandoned them.

They are not impressed, this is not something they gave their approval of, even if they didn’t want to go and do the thing you needed to do anyway (and honestly I think they probably would rather come and hang with you and drive you crazy because what they find that you are doing is boring RATHER than being left at home or away from you. Unless you can schedule a wonderful play date with their best friend, but even then they may not be that happy for you to go or just annoyed that you came back and are ending their play date.

But this is the reality of life. We for our sanity and ease and because sometimes we do not have any other choice, need to go and be away from our kids. And then we need to come back. This dance of comings and goings, we dance it with each child. We dance it as a family.

It can be intricate and we can feel like we never learned the steps, but the dance is going to happen whether we want it to or not and whether we feel confident in our steps. At the end of the day we need to find ways to acknowledge how we all feel and make space for those feelings and then come back together to all feel safer and closer and safer.

One of the best aspects of parenting is snuggling. That cozy time where your body touching their bodies is simply enough. Where they don’t necessarily need to talk (though of course sometimes they do) but simply just need to be held.

As I write this my 11-year-old who has been coming to sleep at the end of my bed for weeks now do to who the heck knows why, but she’s not walking me up in the middle of the night, so eventually she will move past this, has just woken up. None of her sisters are awake yet and it’s before 8 AM so she’s decided to climb into bed next to me and snuggle.

I explained that I needed to write so she isn’t speaking, she may be reading over my shoulder, I am not sure, but there is a sense of coziness to her just hanging out next to me.

I am sure this would fall under the Danish concept of Hygge of doing things to just feel really cozy and connected. I suppose if we had candle burning or were near a fireplace and it was wicked weather outside that would make it even better. Instead it is the start of another sunny spring day.

But right now it is still quiet. The only sounds are of our breathing and my light tapping of the keyboard on my laptop as I write this. There are some distant traffic noises as we live not far from one of the major routes here in Maine.

Her eyes have drifted closed so I know that right now at this moment all is good in her world. Her needs are being met. And let’s face it as parents, that is something that should be celebrated and appreciated, that right now things are good.

No emergencies, no fighting, no hysterics, right now things are good.

When my babies were well babies one of the best parts of my day was when they would fall asleep on me. I would be content just holding them for hours (often times in a baby carrier especially after my firstborn) knowing that all was good in their world, that I had done everything they needed me to do.

When they were toddlers and so into exploring their worlds and at times it felt like a never-ending high alert suicide watch, I would hold out for when they would take a nap. Even if sometimes it was on me and they were all sweaty and hot and I was all sweaty and hot. It created such a good connection, such a good bonding experience to have them sleeping on me and knowing that once again everything was good. I could take a deep breath and just relax for a while.

When my daughters were little and where we lived was small my hubby would often reconnect with them when they slept on him. It was the favorite part of his day too. His love language is touch and I am not sure there is much in the world that makes him happier than having a slumbering small child on his chest. I really think that is one of his favorite parts of being a father.

But children grow. And we want them to because that means they won’t stay in this stage that is driving us crazy forever. And as they grow it can be so easy to lose that connection. To lose that time to be in touch with the other person. I don’t have sons so I don’t know if it is different than daughters, but there comes a point where you really have to wait for them to ask for hugs, rather than them giving them as often and with such free abandon as they did when they were little. They become almost sacred.

I used to do something we called the “lap thing” when I got too big to fit in my mother’s lap. There were just two of us, my brother being 3 ½ years younger than me and my mom would read us many a chapter book aloud as part of our homeschooling (though I am pretty sure she would have done it even if we had remained in school longer). Anyway it was often after lunch cozy time and we would put our heads on either side of her lap while she was reading. Often giggles and silliness would ensue.

But what I remember most other than getting the opportunity to stare at the ceiling for hours on a regular basis (which really does change your perspective of the world) was that we had that regular physical connection. We had that regular touch.

My girls often jostle over who gets to sit next to me on our too small couch when we watch television together. And some days honestly I am touched out and need to go sit someplace else. I do my best to help everyone have a turn and make sure that the ones whose turn it isn’t know that most likely at least one of them can curl up by their dad. There seems to be something so important about these snuggle times. Just like curling up to my hubby at night is often the highlight of my day.

She has fallen so far asleep that she is snoring. Which she needed. And I am sure my bed has got to feel better to her body than the floor. It feels really good to have this connection time with her. One that doesn’t require my brain to be on. One where my mere presence is simply enough.

I am enough

For her

Right now.

I am going to sit here and breathe that in for a while.

There is a new section in the Children’s section of the library. Have you found it yet? It’s small in some libraries and quite large in others. It seems to magically draw any child over the age of three, and certainly any child who has a grasp of what books are, what they are for and their ABCs.

It can be a dangerous section, depending on your library and whether they separate the middle school years from the high school years for these types of books. And while I am okay with kids reading beyond where they are ready, especially where books are concerned, the fact that these books are so heavily illustrated leaves a lot less to the imagination.

And I get that graphic novels, this new type of book that is really just a much longer length of what we grew up with – comic books is really helpful for certain type of emerging readers. It really can help bridge that gap between the visual of the drawings and the written word of what you are reading. And so much of the storytelling is still behind one just by the illustrations in panels rather than the words.

A great cross over. Providing your child has a good grasp on the level of reading that particular graphic novel requires.

But if they don’t. If the reading is beyond them, or they found a siblings copy and they can’t even read it yet themselves, well that can lead to you having to help them.

I don’t mind helping with occasional word, or even sitting there while they sound out the words and read it aloud to me.

But when I have to read a graphic novel out loud I just want to tear my hair out. Literally, can I do anything else for you right now, scrub a toilet?

Clean up vomit?

Walk the dog?

Anything?

Because it is so hard to read a graphic novel. There are so many made up words that are just sounds that for some reason have to be shown as letters and are way more complicated than just pfft. I can be hard to know if your child is ready to move on from that panel much less that page in a timely manner, because the illustrations can be so deep.

There are often not chapters or other obvious stopping points, so you could be stuck with reading the whole book from front to back in one sitting even though they are well over 100 pages.

If you are the type of parent that skims over the truly gross, cruel or violent portions of books when you are reading them aloud to your young children, that really can not be done in graphic novels. Your child is going to know that something bad or evil is going on just by the drawings not to mention the words. And by and large graphic novels take from their comic book roots and there is a lot more violence than your average middle school aged book.

And it’s not like they come with a rating system! They aren’t rated with reading difficulty or violence level or even liberal vs conservative view points. I home-school my kids so that stuff doesn’t bother me as much because my kids will talk to me about what we are reading, what they have been reading and we will discuss things (because even their Readers books have occasionally had things in it we have had to discuss).

And it is probably no worse than the same kind of TV show. I keep my kids on a pretty tight reins for what they can watch on TV and they are girls so they aren’t even interested in watching Power Rangers, or Clone Wars (though they are amazingly quite fond of Dino Trucks and Troll Hunters), so I am not sure what the current violence levels in those books are.

And I totally understand the draw of reading a graphic novel, especially when you are bridging from picture books into chapter books without pictures. But they are so hard to read aloud, to share with another person at the same time. You can totally read it, and then have someone else read it and discuss it, but the act of enjoying them simultaneously, well maybe I am just not wired to do that?

Oh and I should throw out there, that they are usually soft sided paperback books of weird shapes and sizes which can make finding them and keeping tabs on them when they have been borrowed from the library a bit of at trick at times. And believe me you would rather not have to buy a missing graphic novel from the library, because when you eventually find it again, it will now be your copy and that means you might get asked

To Read it Aloud

Again.