Like most children, if not all children, my darlings have a lot to say. Sure, there are times when I have to draw information out of them, and those occasions happen more frequently as they get older, but for the most part, they are rather loquacious individuals. I love their ability and desire to share the stories of their lives, but... and whether or not this makes me a horrible mother, I am sure it lands me in the good and crowded company of millions of other mothers and fathers... I can't always comprehend what they are telling me. Thankfully, their interest in Star Wars has waned to the extent that they are only occasionally exasperated by my inability to name the specific type of spacecraft they have created out of Legos, let alone the pilot of said ship, but Star Wars is just the tip of the iceberg.
From characters in books to characters they have created, from computer game levels to imaginary worlds, from real life events to imaginary play, my children, especially the two oldest, pass a wealth of information on to me. I genuinely try to follow as much as I can, but sometimes I fail miserably. When I am juggling washing lunch dishes, preparing dinner, sweeping up spilled cheerios, mopping up the dog's water, and trying to convince Luke that he need neither drag a chair from the dining room into the kitchen to "help" me wash the dishes nor lie on the floor to slurp up the dog water, sometimes it's a little hard to muster up the attention necessary to follow the activities of people I'm not even sure are imaginary or real - not sure because they frequently use the names of real friends in their imaginary play.
Sometimes it's downright hard to listen, but I've been reminded more than once this week how important it is to listen to my children. With four voices sometimes coming at me all at once and rarely leaving me in complete silence, it can be hard to decipher meaning, let alone distinguish patterns, but I noticed a pattern in one of my children's speech this week. "You never do... with me!" "You said you'd... with me." "I want you to... with me!" "Mom, can we...?" In short, there was a lot of "You and me" in his chatter. The final alarm came two nights ago, when he said, "I want you to read to me, and only to me." I won't deny the fleeting temptation to reprimand him for being selfish. After all, we have four children and I can't be everywhere at once. Plus, it had been a long day, it was already late, I'd just read to all four of them together, and he was being a bit pouty... but to reprimand him for wanting some individual attention, however tired I was and however inconvenient an extra 15 minutes of tucking in would be (really not very), to do so would be akin to reprimanding a hungry child for wanting a whole sandwich instead of just one bite. He was not being selfish, but expressing a very real need for one-on-one time. Besides, we didn't have kids for convenience, and one of the reasons I chose to stay home with them in the first place is because I want to spend time with them. Needless to say, we did have a nice reading session that night and every night since. It seems like a little thing - to read a couple pages of a book before bed, just the two of us - but it's a big thing to him, and I am so glad that I finally heard his message!
Another day this week, one of my children had a bit of trouble during a friend's visit. Afterward, I asked him what had been bothering him. After a couple minutes of coaxing him to share with me (because I'm on his side and may be able to give him a few tips for future use), he reluctantly shared what had upset him. It was a simple matter, one which, to my adult mind, he should have had no hesitation sharing. But he did, and it reminded me how crucial it is to be there for my kids, even in the seemingly little things.
Those little things aren't so little to a kid, and if we hope to hear about the big things when they are older, we'd better be interested in the big things in their lives now. We can't afford not to care about tie-fighters and x-wings, Secret Agent Clubs and Dragon Training, the tree fort in the backyard or the fifth level of the video game they just created on computer paper. Someday heftier matters will take the place of these things, and I want to have established certain modes of operation so that they'll have a home base to which to run when they don't know what to do with life. I'm not naive enough to believe they'll come to me with all their teenage woes, but I hope that through caring about the little dramas of childhood, we will send them into their teen years and beyond confident in their parents' unconditional love and acceptance. I don't want them to have to go it completely alone. They may choose to go it completely alone, but I want them to have the option of a listening and loving ear.
So, I'm working on listening more closely to the chatter that seems senseless and the concerns that seem trivial. And I pray they never stop talking.
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