it is one of my favorite sounds... its my babies tucked tight into their beds on the few nights i am "allowed" to have them. they share the master suite downstairs and my bedroom is right above theirs and their happy silly beautiful voices float up through the heating ducts in the house. sometimes i will just lay in bed and listen to them conversing. sometimes laughing. sometimes fighting (which is followed by the inevitable stomping up the stairs for a chance to state their cases.) most nights it turns into a counseling session on other people's feelings... neither one of them is ever declared the winner of the fight when the dispute is taken to the higher court of mom's bedroom. but they keep trying. or perhaps that is the reason they keep coming back. we work it out, figure out where each went wrong and sometimes still have to declare that life isn't fair. but with me, there really has to be some HUGE wrong done before anyone walks away with a punishment. i look at it as a teaching moment about empathy and communication. but i think i have digressed here... i was talking about the sounds of their voices. tonight before i left their room they kept asking for one more hug, one more kiss, one more, one more, one more... finally in exasperation i said they needed to stop and settle down. my eldest said, but its the last night... i said jokingly, "not forever, just a couple weeks". the baby said "that is forever". i told them, as i always do when they bring this up, that if i could be with them everyday all day long i would. if i could change it, i would. i put on a brave face and reason with them that 2 weeks isn't that very long and i kiss them again and turn off the light.
but they are right. it is forever. their childhood years have been portioned out to me in thimbles. i understand now just how hard and heartbreaking it must have been for my first ex husband when i announced i was moving to a different state with his young children. i took precious time away from not only him but from his children as well. it was wrong for me to do that. it is wrong for what is happening to my children now.
i suddenly had the need tonight to return downstairs to tell them again how much i love them. i am sure when they heard my footsteps on the stairs that the hammer was coming down on their past bedtime silliness but instead i knocked and went in quietly. i sat on the bed and grinned at them and reminded them that sound travels a lot in the house. they both grinned back at me. i took out their lotion and rubbed each of their backs praying a silent prayer that they could feel the love flowing into their skin and the gentle touch of a mother who misses them so much that i find it difficult to breathe on tuesdays when i drop them off at school knowing that its going to be forever before i see them, mother them, again.
the uneven distribution of custody hurts my heart but i am a big girl, i can deal with it. but what it is doing to the girls is damaging them forever. the time taken from them and their mother can never be replaced. not with other people. not with fun things to do. not with money and cool stuff. it is also damaging the way these girls feel and their opinions about the adults around them who are continuing to cause the conflict. i really don't know if its even occurred to them. how very tragic for everyone involved.
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