Of late Patch has been climbing into bed with me almost nightly. I’ve been too busy to pay it much mind other than to sometimes move him to the padded mat on the floor. Today I thought about it and remembered that this behavior is a sign of unease in him. It means he has an emotional need that is not being met. Patch is also seeking out extra hugs and snuggles. So is Gleek. Gleek is also running faster and more emotionally volatile lately. Link is more able to verbalize his needs. He has been outright wishing for more attention. Kiki seems to be doing okay, but she is far more included in the adult stuff than the other kids are. I have not had time to focus much on the kids and they can tell. They haven’t noticed the lack of outings or special trips, but they are definitely noticing that I spend large portions of each day down in my office and that I say “please wait” far more often than “sure I can help you.”
Tonight I had what amounted to an interview with both Link and Gleek. I asked them about the things that worried them or made them sad. It was like I’d pulled out the cork plugging the hole in the dam. Sadness poured out. In both cases the sadness is magnified by this being late in the day when they are tired, but there is definitely real sadness there. I listened carefully to what they would like to be different, trying to distill the true causes so I can solve them. There were lots of words and requests, but the essence of them is that the kids need more of my focused attention. They need me to be more present on a daily basis. They need me to provide more order in the house and in their schedules. They need me to spend more time as an active listener.
Today is not a good day for this particular leaf to turn over. Tomorrow is not a day that I can actively demonstrate a change to the kids. Tomorrow has to be a business day because I have Tracy and Curtis Hickman coming to sign 1000 books. During the signing I can not be focused on kids. At the end of the day I am going to be tired, but I am going to have to find the energy to give to my kids. There has to be a family home evening and there has to be a stable bedtime routine. Both of those things have been much absent lately. The rest of the week is not ideal for focusing on the kids either. Shipping weeks are always business heavy. This is exactly the problem. Almost all of my weeks have been business heavy since sometime in March. After all the shipping, I will have exactly one week to try to stabilize the kids before handing them off to my brother while I fly to Worldcon.
Once I am back, I am done with major business for awhile. Once I am back, the kids will go back to school and I can better segregate the business and parenting parts of my life. I can see that things are on the edge of being better. I tried to tell this to the kids, but I am afraid they did not believe me. Why should they? Busy Mommy is so normal now that they hardly know how to believe in anything else. Besides, they don’t want things to be better in a few weeks. They want it better now. I have to make it better for them. I have to.