Friday night at the Corning household means a lazy night kicking it with my husband and my seven and nine year old sons. It is Nirvana. It is what I look forward to all work week. So this Friday when my sons both lobbied hard for a sleep-over at neighbor’s I was, well, totally freaking bummed.
Which kind of surprised me. For one thing, it wasn’t their first sleepover. And primarily I was surprised because didn’t I want some actual alone time with my husband that didn’t involve having speed sex before one of the boys knocks on the door and kills the moment? Didn’t I want to be able to take a bath (uninterrupted) with candles and a nice glass of wine? Wouldn’t I like to at the very least curl up with a good book and enjoy being able to immerse myself in a story line without having to answer the call of “MMMOOOOMMMM!!!!”?
Incredibly even when I mentally went through this very compelling list of reasons that I should want my boys to give me a night of peace, my heart still was heavy with the thought of them “abandoning” me. I was feeling like they had finally become these cool little humans and I wanted to spend time with them after spending zero quality time together that week. Craziest of all is that it did feel like they were abandoning me. What kind of mom had I become?
Because the hardest thing about being a mom is that essentially if we do our jobs well as mothers we hope some day to get fired. All the tummy-time, and Baby Einstein, and sports teams, and homework, and life lessons we teach our kids are designed to culminate in them eventually being able to do it for themselves as responsible adults. That means they won’t need us as much – certainly not in the same intense way they do in their early years.
So I remind myself that this independence is a good thing. But I still throw myself a teeny pity party because I can tell I’m going to miss this job.
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