The Cruelest Toll

You know what I've been thinking about? Time. I don't look at myself and think of it ('cause I've still pretty much got it goin' on), but I look at my children. They are so big now. My boy is grown and I remember him as an infant with a tummy ache and how I used to sit with him so he knew his pain and outrage would not cause abandonment. For then-unknown reasons, it was fiercely important to me that he know that. I think of the twins and their curly little heads -- A with her stories and J, whose answer to everything was 'no'. And then there was S, who used to get her chubby little legs stuck in the furniture. And who could forget the time the four year-old twins tried to teach the infant S how to escape her crib while the hub and I laughed very quietly in the hallway at the spectacle? "You gotta put your leg over the bars like this (insert funny physical demonstration here). Come on, S. You can do it!" And she did do it. We interrupted in time to prevent a fall.

I resent the times I know I have missed due to trauma fallout. And there was nothing I could do about it. This is why I hate my parents and will never forgive. They robbed me and they robbed my precious babies by extension. Sometimes I still fall down in the mess and there is no such thing as enough time. Growing children do not wait. I wish I could save up somehow. I would spend it all on my children.