Outside

I was doing my normal weekly clean-laundry-put-crap-away routine, when I noticed that the kids were both in their room. 

So I stood outside the shut door and listened.

I could hear them both playing (together!) and laughing (at the same time!) and having a great time in general.

I wanted so badly to go in and watch them, or even better, to be part of it.  But then I had this realization.



Inside that room is their own world.  It belongs to them.  And as the Mom, I don't have any part of it.  Outside of that room there are rules and routine and discipline and order and structure, and that's the world that I am a part of.  I knew that if I were to go in there, even just to watch them play, that the dynamic would change. 

I can't tell you how sad it made me.  I cried telling Chris about it later on.  I just wanted to see them having fun together.  But I made myself go back to work, back to making lunches and putting the apartment in order.  Because even though it made me sad, it's exactly what I wanted.  I wanted to be able to give my Boy a sibling to grow up with, to play with and love and be friends with.  And I can't help but feel that in order for that to really happen, I just have to get out of the way.

At least some of the time...