Sometimes it is just so hard

Today is beautiful, sunny and in the upper-50's F, so I gave the older boys a choice for quiet-time while "the baby" napped.  Upstairs with books, or outside playing. 

They decided to play outside, which I think was a smart choice (duh!), but they begged for me to come and sit outside to watch them play. 

Their quiet-time is my quiet-time too, and the only time I have alone day or night, since I've been going to bed and getting up at the same time as them.  As much as I love these boys, I need my space.  I need that meager hour of QT in the afternoons.  I need the silence and solitude.  It is like a balm to my brain and soul.

I did go outside on the front step to hang diapers to dry while they transitioned from inside to out.  It was lovely and warm with that crisp fall scent in the air.  Diego bobbled around, looking for boxelder bugs, but Truen stuck close to me and regaled me with an endless minutiae of questions about plants and seeds.  So adorable, of course . . . but after 10 minutes my mind was buzzing and all I could think of was escape.

His string of questions included, "Remember those balls with seeds in them?  Where did they go?", "Remember when I planted them?", "Here's my special plant, do you see it?", "Will my plant grow as big as Diego?", "Where did Diego's plant go?", "The hen-and-chick, yeah -- where did it go?", "Will Diego's plant grow as big as Diego?", etc.

I tried to keep up with it as best I could until I realized I needed an escape and put an end to it after the second or third straight question of, "Will ____ grow as big as Diego?".  I finally very gently said, "Uhm, Truen?  Remember that this is my quiet-time too . . ."

"I know," he said good-naturedly, "but I just wanted to talk to you."

Heart-stab.  Of course he just wanted to talk to me.  Most of my morning was spent in the kitchen putting together a salmon chowder and a BBQ beef for the slow-cooker and keeping Jamie satisfied.  I hardly saw either of the older boys all morning while they played hard, enmeshed in their world of make-believe. 

Of course he wanted to talk to me.

It is moments like these when I think, "What kind of a mother am I?"  Seriously.  What kind of a mother am I??  And while I am able to see the larger picture, and I do know that I am not hard-hearted or even unusual in my short-comings or inabilities, my heart was pricked by his sweet desire to converse with me. 

It is so hard to be human.  I never used to think about that, I don't think.  I liked to complain about my slavery to the 40-hour work-week or how busy I was in school, but I'm not sure I ever felt so depleted as I do now.  Mothering is so intense, sucking the very marrow from our bones.  It doesn't matter if the well is dry or whether "I have it in me" . . . because all these little people need me, all the time.  They need my attention, affection, eyes, ears, hands, heart, mind.  My everything.  And they deserve my best.  But it is just so. hard.  Overwhelming.  All-encompassing.

{And I love them}