ohbloodyhell8

Last night as I tucked my sons into bed, it hit me.  They are 8 and 6 years old.  When did that happen?  I’m pretty good at keeping the special stuff and packing it away for when they are grown-up.  I write in their journals (plan on doing that when Irene knocks out my power).  And I am a photo fiend…more pictures have been taken of these boys than any child needs.  But where did the time go?

Like slamming into a brick wall, the reality slapped me across my face that I had gotten wrapped up in fungible time.  Yes, I am currently obsessed with evaluating my fungible and epochal time.  I’ve missed so much epochal time with them.  I could not say with 100% confidence right now what they are thinking about and being about.  I can rattle off list after list of what school supplies they chose or what toys they want.  But what their hopes and dreams are, I haven’t a clue.

This is a struggle all parents face.  How do you keep your own sense of self, maintain your personal interests so you don’t look back 20 years later and have resent or regret, and be there for your children?  I believe I need to keep involved in things for myself.  I also need to keep my marriage strong.  And I want to be the mom that my boys come to with stuff.  If I could change the time continuum, this would be a breeze.  But since I lost my flux capacitor, I have to work with only 24 hours in a day.  The trick I remind myself of is to let go of the little things and embrace the epochal time as it’s presented to you.

We are in Hurricane Irene’s path.  Hopefully not right under her center, but more in the green section around the red section in the computer models.  Because of Irene, I don’t have to go to work today or tomorrow as scheduled.  Because of Irene I had to postpone my oldest son’s birthday party today.  But I gained 48 hours of epochal time.  I used the first 12-14 hours to secure things that could fly around and hurt people or stuff and to sleep (ah, sleep without an alarm clock, other than my diabetic dog barking to go out).  The rest of these hours are going to be spent celebrating my oldest son’s birthday with cheese sticks and marinara sauce (I had been making marinara sauce when I went into labor, so I crave it every August 27^th).  We’re going to bake his cake and play Yahtzee.  We are going to talk about my boys’ dreams.  About what they want to be when they grow up.   About what they think about.  About who they are in this moment.

Happy birthday to my big guy and, again, happy birthday to my little guy (July 31^st).  You have both given me eight and six amazing years of life.  And a lot of Legos to step on.