I feel like I am living in the long days of parenting. Those days when you spend all morning doing the same jigsaw with Bubba Girl, then find it was actually only 5 minutes. Those days when hanging the washing, or doing the dishes, or having a shower are accompanied by (if I’m lucky) 1000 questions or (if I’m not) the necessity to arbitrate a peace treaty and prevent world war three.
Those days where after the kids are in bed, the parenting continues as you sort clothes, make lunches, clean up the table where the girls have painted with their yoghurt. Those days where you get to the end of the day and you say, “just what exactly, did I do all day today?”
Yet these are also the short days, somehow they seem to fly by. The days drag but the weeks speed past, the minutes lag but somehow we are in April. Bubba girl is truly no longer a bubba (next month she will be two … although she will always be my Bubba Girl). Little Miss is growing in her independence and learning to take responsibility for her things, so much so that at times I turn to Mr and say “we have to remember how young our oldest still is”.
There is a danger in these long short days, of wishing the day away, mechanically going through the motions until bed, surviving. And yes, some days that is actually not just a danger but reality. But the majority of the days are not about survival, they are about living life, enjoying the moment, breathing and doing that jigsaw again, relishing the moments when there is a (temporary) détente, appreciating the creativity of the child even with yoghurt (no … that’s too much of a stretch!).
It’s about perspective, and remembering that these long days are also short.
Ah, yes, how right you are … as I sit here at 9.40pm writing out my menu for the week and preparing the shopping list for tomorrow. Next job = bed and then it begins again tomorrow! Another quote I love is “the years teach us much which the days never knew”. x