Rediscovering Grown-Up Time
Written by Jen Thursday, 20 August 2009 11:57
Blog
The face of back-to-school days is changing. Well, it's changing in my house at least. Used to be that the end of summer caught me by surprise and I'd scramble to fulfill our "wish list" before the first school bus rumbled up the street. Play dates were planned. We'd rush off to the swimming pool. Maybe we'd fit in a long weekend away. I'd invite the neighbors for a cookout and we'd watch the kids catch fireflies and play Ghost in the Graveyard one last time.
These days, I hardly have to coax my children to plan social activities. Instead, I have to be creative to convince them to stay home. Ice cream for dinner? As long as we're together. You want to host a Guitar Hero Marathon with 20 of your closest friends? Sure, honey. Just keep the volume down after midnight and let Dad play, too.
Many of our friends are in similar predicaments with adolescent or teenage children, so the end-of-summer blast has turned from kid-focused fun to a grown-up flurry of scheduling as we squeeze in a coffee break, an evening walk or dinner with friends before the first days of school hit us fast and furious. Last week my husband and I managed a night out with some old friends, well overdue. In addition, I happily rediscovered "girl time" with college and high school pals and mothers of my kids' classmates. Reconnecting with these great folks has been invigorating. I've missed this.
When my kids were very young, I worked sporadically from home, picking up a freelance project here and there and writing at midnight or during rare moments of daytime peace. Like most stay-at-home moms, I loved being with my kids but would often yearn for just an hour of adult companionship. It does happen eventually. They are with us for such a short time.
It is appropriate that our energies go to our children during their childhood and adolescent years. Children need family time, and lots of it. Even headstrong teens crave the presence of stable adults, though they certainly don't show it often. Grown-up time comes soon enough, stolen during these rare days of late summer and treasured like the last fireflies of the season.
