Stay here. Play with me.

It broke my heart wide open...

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Yesterday my toddler took a shorter-than-usual nap. It was an hour-and-a-half, which isn’t terrible, but for the past two or three weeks, I’ve grown accustomed to the luxury of my kids taking a three-hour nap AT THE SAME TIME. I’ve literally been waiting an entire year for this, so I’m fairly convinced that I’ve reached the pinnacle of parental success.

Three hours feels like an eternity since becoming a SAHM. Most days I can’t even escape to pee for thirty seconds without my one-year-old clinging to the denim around my ankles, or my toddler bringing a collection of toys to display on the bathroom floor for me. Even my cat will occasionally paw at a closed bathroom door in attempt to break in.

Considering how rare it is to enjoy even thirty seconds of solitude while the kids are awake, I’ve been fantasizing about what and how much I could do with three entire hours while they’re asleep.

I can do yoga, read a book, or write. I can fold laundry, clean the house, and watch something other than Trash Truck or Thomas & Friends. I can catch up on work or take a freaking shower. I can eat as many chocolate chip cookies as I want and not have to share a single bite. I can do whatever I want in those three hours, and it has been an absolute godsend.

One of the more humorous lessons of parenting, however, is that once you think you have something figured out, everything will inevitably change. I should know this by now, but I’m thrown off every time. I should have known that these three hours naps weren’t going to stick around forever.

On this particular day, once I put both boys down for their nap, I had just enough time to eat lunch and collapse for a few minutes before I made myself get up to catch up on some work. I felt like a zombie, so I put the kettle on for tea.

While I waited for the water to boil, I stared unenthusiastically at the mess surrounding me. It amazes me how quickly the mess—any mess—appears when you have kids, how it tends to accumulate throughout the day, and how, unless I’m adamant about staying on top of the dishes, I’m scrubbing the oatmeal pot alongside the lasagna pan after dinner. Or, let’s be honest, Jim is, because I hate doing the dishes, and I’d rather fold laundry or scrub a toilet or do most other house tasks instead of the dishes.

I yawned and eyed random chunks of sweet potato on the floor. There were pieces of oatmeal from breakfast, a dried splat from a smoothie pouch, bits of discarded crust from pb + j sandwiches, and other unidentifiable crumbs. Tell me you have a toddler without telling me you have a toddler, right?

I had just sat down on the couch with my cup of tea and opened my laptop when I heard a series of footsteps thumping above me, followed by Loren’s bedroom door swinging open and slamming shut. I tensed up and froze; I checked the time. Seriously? Already? You’ve got to be kidding me. I was exhausted, and now I was cranky. I groaned, begrudgingly got up from the couch, and walked to the stairs.

Loren stood on the landing at the top of the stairs, smiling, and looking down at me from behind the baby gate. When I asked him if he was ready to come down, he said, “Uppy,” which, to his credit, is the most endearing way of asking to be picked up that I’ve ever heard.

Thankfully, Loren dove into some serious self-play. I was not in the mood to explain the matching game again, run from scary dinosaurs, or fix the blanket fort that the cats had successfully destroyed while we weren’t looking. I needed another minute to myself, so I put on my audiobook and started chipping away at the mess in the kitchen. Loren brought his yellow backpack into the kitchen and started playing at my feet. He played like that, contentedly stuffing magnets and cards from the matching game into various tupperwares and filling his toolbox with trains for a good 20-30 minutes.

Then he pointed to the ground and in his sweet, soft, sing-song voice he spoke five words that stopped me in my tracks, “Stay here. Play with me.”

Stay here. Play with me.

It broke my heart wide open. Loren’s words immediately drew me out of my behind-on-work frustration, and my must-clean-now mood. It brought me to my knees and filled me with the urge to wrap my arms around my boy. I cradled his head in my arms and kissed his forehead.

I felt so many emotions in that moment. Surprise at hearing him articulate his desire for me to play with him so clearly. His words made him seem so big to me, and so smart. I felt a longing for the time—the years—that had already passed, the moments we’d never get back. My mind flashed forward to his teenage years, and I felt a sadness for the day he’d stop asking Mommy to sit with him and play; I felt an urge to savor that moment. I felt guilty for doing the dishes instead of playing with him, and selfish for wanting him to sleep longer so I could have more time to myself.

Mostly, I felt an overwhelming sense of love and gratitude for my beautiful boy.

I still felt the pressure of my work that wasn’t done, the ongoing messiness of a house that needed to be cleaned, and the usual parental fatigue, but everything felt less urgent in that moment.

There was only one place I wanted to be. We sat on the kitchen floor and played together, pretending to eat ice cream, playing tickle monster, and singing 5 Little Ducks on repeat until baby brother woke up from his nap.

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