You'll Crack Your Head Open!

My kids are big now.  Well not big, but 6 and 4.  They don’t need me for every little thing anymore.  They pick out their own clothes.  Half the time when they fall they don’t even need a kiss.

What am I supposed to do now?

Growing up, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a Mommy.  I never wanted to be a flight attendant, a fashion designer or a vet like so many of my friends did.  I wanted to be a mom.

I have no backup plan.

We had always planned on having four kids, maybe even five.  But I had health problems right after my 4yo was born.  Then we had money problems.

Now my kids are off doing things on their own.  My daughter will be in first grade in a few weeks.  She’ll be gone all day.  My son will be starting preschool sometime this year too.  I’m going to be here all by myself.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve been looking forward to not having kids hanging all over me.  A LOT.  I was an only child and I enjoy my quiet time.  My kids are also VERY LOUD.  My daughter especially.  She’s got a LOUD, BOOMING VOICE and likes to be TWO INCHES FROM YOUR HEAD when she TALKS TO YOU.  She’s also a happy little CHATTERBOX.  So I’ve had varying degrees of a HEADACHE FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS.  (Are you enjoying that I’m bringing you into my world with ALL THE YELLING? Oh.  Okay.  SORRY.  hehe..)

My son yells too, but it’s mostly just so he can be HEARD OVER HIS SISTER.  (sorry…)  He’s also been very competitive with her lately.  He wants to be faster, bigger, stronger and louder than she is.  Lord help me.

But still…  They’re doing more and more without me.  And I can see the day coming when they’re both in school all day.  It’s right around the corner and I’m starting to panic a little.

I’ve never understood why the five year age gap between kids is so common.  I’ve met a lot of people who have five years between themselves and another sibling, or have kids who are five years apart.  Now I get it.  It’s the Where’s My Baby gap.  The starting preschool gap.  The getting dressed and blowing their nose by themselves gap.

I still don’t know if we’re going to have another baby or not.  There are as many reasons to say yes as there are to say no.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s not so much a baby craving as it is not knowing what to do next.   I guess a lot of it has to do with the fact that I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  So I thought that the title for this post was a good name for it.  It’s not empty nest syndrome.  My kids aren’t going off to college, but they’re stepping away from me a bit.  My nest isn’t empty, but there’s a lot of extra room that I don’t know what to do with.   The question is how do I fill it?

Any advice or stories from the same boat out there in blog land?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Life and stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.