While I Was Spending Time with my Kids

I had a few different ideas about what I wanted to write about today. I’ve been mulling them over and rolling them around all day. Once the kids were home from school I set my phone aside and we played charades while having a snack. Then chores and dinner. Only then did they turn the tv on, but we don’t have cable. No chance of hearing what’s going on out there in the rest of the world.

See, the kids have been almost literally climbing the walls the past week. Fighting, screaming, scheming, and really hitting each other. This is the most cooped up we’ve been through all of this because we’re not taking hikes or neighborhood walks like we usually do. We’re also coming out of another swing of too much tech. Now that they are back in school I have a much easier time implementing no tech, more family time, chores get done more easily. It’s still a fight, but once they see me hold my ground, we quickly get back into our routine. Hence, no way for me to know what had been going on while we ate our late dinner and tucked our kids into bed. That’s when I called my mom back. That’s when I was once more glued to my phone for a couple hours.

Keeping up with this insanity is exhausting and so time consuming. I just don’t have it in me to be as hyper focused on it all as maybe I should be. That isn’t to say that I have my head in the sand, but I do often hear the latest second hand and then look into it later. Scouring news article after article. I also have three kids who are quickly becoming young women before my eyes, and, in order for them to be able to make their own decisions and have the strength of character and of convictions to shape the future and their own, my main focus has to be them. Especially while most other influences are not an option in our current climate.

The best I can do right now is maintain my mental and physical health and try to teach, support, and help my girls to do the same for themselves. This is such a difficult time to grow up and I want them to be able to face the world without me or their father. We may have brought them into this world, but it is their lives to lead.