Waking Up

I'm a terrible mom. My darling daughter is six years old and I look at her, wondering who is this stranger? When she was born, I wanted to keep a journal of her first years of life, but typically, that journal sat on a shelf to rot. When I did write about DD in my regular journal, it seemed to be me complaining about her crying or her behavior.

Where were the fun times? I rarely made note of them. I have somehow become remote and distant to her, even though I swore I would never treat her like that.

Time flies and here I am, six years later, still remote, still confused.

She begged me to play a game this past weekend, a beautiful gorgeous weekend when we should have been playing in the yard--but instead, I wanted to take a nap. I made her take one, too.

Sunday night, I went to bed feeling guilty that all my daughter wanted was a little bit of my time, and I was too self-absorbed to give her any. Self-absorption should be my middle name. I let myself get bogged down in the daily grind and forget the important things, like taking time to play Candyland or Go Fish. I wanted her to play by herself, to entertain herself--she has a million toys she never even plays with--but then I realized later that she has no idea how to play pretend or to play with Barbies because I never (or rarely) bothered to do that with her. I guess I thought she would automatically learn.

Her entertainment comes from Nickelodeon and Disney cartoons. She does not know what to do with herself when the tv is off. On Saturday afternoon, I shut off the tv, and instead of playing, we took a nap (although, we had gotten up around 5:45am that day). Too much sleeping, all the while life is slipping away.

Thankfully, every day is a new day, and I can work to make our lives more full of joy and fun things. I decided that instead of wallowing in self-pity this summer, I would make a conscious effort to do more activities as a family. For instance, last night we made up a list of ten things we will do this summer:

1. swimming
2. camping
3. fishing
4. go to the library
5. go to grandma's house
6. go to the zoo
7. play
8. go to the park
9. go on walks
10. go to bible school

Then after she went to bed, I thought of another list of things:

1. ride bikes
2. play dress-up
3. do crafts
4. hopscotch
5. paint
6. redecorate her bedroom
7. watch movies
8. go to summer festivals
9. sing
10. dance
11. play with a Frisbee
12. go to the local state park

That's a lot of stuff to pack into one summer. At the end of the summer, I will collect all the photos I take of our activities and compile them into a scrapbook. I will write about the fun things we do, and DD will contribute her own writing and artwork as well.

I have to wake up to my life, instead of sleepwalking through it.