Missing my two hearts

I miss my kids.  I can’t wait to pick them up today and see their silly smiles and hear about their day.  Yes there is the rambunctious roller coaster of homework, cooking, eating, clean up, phone call with their dad that sometimes causes stress, bath time, story time—it’s an explosion of activity.  But I can’t wait to have them home.  I can’t wait to check in on them later tonight, snug in their bunk beds, sleeping peacefully—DD2 on the top bunk, smooshed up in between her pillows and her giant hello kitty that she got for her birthday.  Oh wait, DD1 got it for HER birthday, but has let DD2 keep it.  DD1, snuggled in on the bottom bunk, lately she’s been making a tent (but with a space so she can stick her head out) with a blanket tucked into the rungs of the top bunk and dangling down to cover the rest of the space between her head and the ladder at the foot of her bed.

I thought that the routine would get easier with time.  I thought I would embrace the no-kids time and I do, I fill it up with soul replenishing activities like paddling out into the ocean and catching waves, forcing myself to stop on the way back in and lay back on my board and meditate in the moment—feel the motion of the water, listen to the breaking of the waves, inhaling the fresh salt air, filling my heart with peace.  It helps.  Or spending time with the hubby watching movies and relaxing, or spending time with a girlfriend, too.  I also take advantage of the no-kids time to go about my adult family errands that are much easier without children, the grocery shopping, the laundry, the cleaning, the everything that is kind of simpler without chasing a giggling pre-schooler around or arguing points with a precocious elementary student.

But, I miss them.  I woke up last Friday, heart full of sadness that they would be apart from me, my two hearts.  Over the week end, I found some drawings of DD2—one including three “girls,” purple hair waving in the wind, a big one--mommy, a medium one—big sister, and a baby one—DD2 (as she described it), standing under a rainbow.  I folded their laundry and neatly put them away, knowing that tonight and tomorrow morning, they will likely tear through their drawers in search of what are we going to wear to school today.  I picked up random toys sprinkled around the couch, remnants of the last dash out of the house to school/work last Friday morning.

I look ahead at the increasing time sharing in a few years and wonder--does it get easier?  Will it ever?  I hope so.  Today, I feel both melancholy and peaceful.  Melancholy from missing them, but peaceful that in a few hours I get to pick them up and bring them home.