siblings – Mama Needs Coffee

Mommy time, daddy time, and “dating” your kids

July 6, 2018

One morning when our oldest, Joey, was around 4 years old, I was walking out the door for a meeting or a couple hours’ work at a coffee shop, leaving him and his then two younger siblings with a mother’s helper. I heard a bang as the screen swung open behind me and heard a loud sniffling. I turned back to see my normally stoic firstborn crying in the doorway: “Mommy, I just want to beeeee with you.”

He loved his babysitter, and it was only a couple hours a week that I was away from them at all, but he was sensitive to the fact that I was not giving him much quality time at that point.

And I couldn’t, to be honest. I was newly pregnant with baby number four, still working full time-ish, and we had just begun hustling in earnest to save for a down payment for our first house. If we did spend much one on one time with each kid during that season, it was probably a quick bedtime story, a diaper change, or a snuggle before lights out. And that was fine, because it was appropriate for the season we were in!

That being said, even with – perhaps especially with – a larger than average family, it is important to me that each of our kids feel individually known and loved by us. To that end, we’ve started to block out intentional, specific chunks of time each week to spend a few minutes one on one with our older kids, and we’re already starting to see returns on the investment in alone time. Our kids call it “mommy time” and “daddy time,” and I call it taking them on dates, at least in my head.

This morning, for example, I took Joey with me to run an errand and on the way back we stopped at Starbucks to go inside rather than hitting the drive through (big thrill for him) and I got him a $3 breakfast sandwich. He felt like the king of the world retrieving his very own order from the bar, and for about $6 we made a sweet little memory together.

I joke with Dave that we’ve been parenting on defense only for about the past five years, but now that our oldest is approaching eight, we’re starting to feel like we have a little bit – like maybe a couple inches – of breathing room, and so we’ve been trying to do things a little more proactively. (N.B: our youngest is only 6 months, but she’s bottle fed and that has made a world of difference for me in terms of returning to stability postpartum. Usually by 6 months out I’m still feeling pretty touched and tapped out, but with Zelie being a fabulous sleeper and anybody with two thumbs being able to serve her a meal, the return to “the new normal” has been a little more swift).

Growing up in a family of nine, it sometimes felt like there was always another person around. Because, um, there was always another person around.

But! My parents were really great about usually grabbing a kid or two to run an errand, make a grocery trip, or (and this was the holy grail) hit up McDonald’s early on a Saturday morning for hashbrowns with Dad. I remember sneaking downstairs at 7 am and seeing him slipping out the door and running to catch up. I think the unofficial rule was if you were up, you could come. Sometimes it would be just you and dad, and that was always a huge (cheap) thrill.

Several of my kids have, unfortunately, inherited the early riser gene and have begun to beg to accompany me on a morning walk before Dave leaves for the office. Some days I know that I desperately need the alone time to prepare for the day ahead, but other days I’m able to green light them for a little mommy time. It is always so bittersweet to see how happy it makes them, because I know they’re longing for more time with me and also that sometime in the not-so-distant future they’re going to stop asking. So I try to say yes.

My hope is that with every stop at Target and run through the car wash, we’re laying down another layer in the foundation of our relationship. I don’t want to be my kids’ best friend; but I do want to be the biggest influence in their lives. I want them to come to me with big things someday, having become accustomed to running to me with small things.

And so I’ll feign – or is it cultivate? – interest in Pokemon cards and Lego Star Wars and imaginary cat tea parties with the hope that many little yeses during the adoring little years will add up to greater harmony in the adolescent years. I figure if I’m letting them hang out with me now when I’m the coolest person in the universe to them, perhaps they’ll return the favor when the tables are turned in the next five years or so.

Some other easy (and cheap!) date ideas:

Grocery story buddy: helps grab each item off the shelf, holds open produce bags, selects bananas, pays cashier, etc. Hard and fast rule with this one is you get to ask for one “special” item, like a box of granola bars or a Gatorade or a piece of weird fruit, and that’s it. Habitual begging will get you sidelined from grocery-buddy duty.
Starbucks date. We have one walking distance from our house, and the bigger kids love to walk the ½ mile there and back with me.
Hardware shop run with daddy. He’s so fun that he even lets them build the craft if they’re there at the right time on a Saturday morning.
Adoration. I like to stop by our parish’s perpetual adoration chapel for even a five minute visit, depending on how many kids I have with me. If I only have one and it’s an older (read: quieter) child, we’ll stay a little longer, maybe as long as 15 minutes. The more often I do this, the better the kids respond to it.
Ice cream run. Self-explanatory. My kids had their first Dairy Queen dipped cones last week when we hit a record high of 105 degrees, and they were on cloud nine.
PetSmart. My kids loooove to look at animals I will never buy them, and it’s cheaper than the zoo. Sometimes we might pick up a small cat treat for the single pet we do own.
A neighborhood walk where we distribute “kindness rocks”. We found one on a stroll one day and the kids were instantly enamored. It’s just a smooth, flat rock that is either painted or colored with crayons with a kind word or message. My kids like to draw emojis or write Scripture verses on their rocks and then leave them at the base of mailboxes throughout the neighborhood, which is very 2018 of them.
Letting one kid stay up late for a special date night with mommy. I usually do this if Dave has a late night at work or an event that keeps him out. I’ll pull a kid after bedtime (never before. #lessonlearned) and we’ll creep downstairs for hot chocolate or a nail-painting session while everyone else is (allegedly) sleeping.

Some other suggestions I’ve come across and haven’t tried yet include running/swimming/playing tennis with an older kid (I think this will become especially valuable with my boys as they age and are no longer interested in dating their mother at a coffee shop); writing a “conversation journal” back and forth – some friends with daughters have started to do this and are seeing great fruit in their relationships with their tween and preteen daughters; going to Daily Mass alone with just one kid; grabbing someone at lunchtime for a fast food run for a surprise break from the school day, or even a whole weekend or night away with one kid for a special family tradition once they turn a certain age.

What are some things you do with your kids to foster one on one time? Did your parents do this with you? Do you have logistical suggestions for how to make it work with a bigger family? I’d love to hear.

Budget hack: a kid’s hot chocolate split into 2 cups comes out to about .$75/kid, and is plenty of sugar.

About Me, Family Life, large family, motherhood, Parenting, siblings

“Mom and dad were right”: big family benefits all grown up

October 19, 2017

I left a comment on someone’s super sweet Instagram post last week (hi, Nell!) of a shot of her kiddos headed down the block to her sister’s house in search of cousins to play with. She asked her followers what their own experiences were like with the adult sibling dynamic, and whether they were in close physical proximity. I think I was one of the few – maybe the only – responders to have the great fortune of having both many siblings and many siblings who live close by. It forced me to stop and reflect on the blessing these people are in my life, and also the unique nature of this intentional community we’ve created for ourselves and our families.

I am the oldest of 7 kids. I grew up as the lead duck in a string of ducklings trailing across grocery store parking lots and filling most of an entire pew in Mass on Sundays. We were definitely not a typical sight in the small, conservative town I spent most of my formative years in, and we were for sure, even at then “only” 5 in number, a typical sight in the Bay Area suburb we moved from the summer before my 11th birthday. I got pretty used to the gaping stares, the bobbing, open-mouthed silent counting and eye movement of strangers, and, yes, the occasional insane comment to my mom in the checkout line.

Now that I have my own multiplying string of ducklings, it has become second nature to ignore the interest we occasionally arouse in public. I also think living in a place like Denver, where people are pretty individualistic and open minded (for better and for worse), the shock factor is a little harder to come by. Whatever the case, I’m more than equipped to handle probing questions at Trader Joe’s and incredulous smiles at the playground; I’ve been training for it my whole life.

Baby brother holding baby mine. (If only I could get him to change diapers, payback would be in full.)

If you’d have asked 17 year old Jenny (who was less than thrilled that her mom was pregnant with baby number 7 at the time) her thoughts on being the eldest in a large family, she – I – would probably have snorted and quite possibly rolled her eyes. Deep down I didn’t mind it … much. But now, 17 years later, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Far from being resentful of the more than occasional babysitting shift thrust upon me, or the relative lack of disposable income, I would be able to put my hands firmly on the shoulders of my teenage self and tell her, in all honesty, “these are the best people you will ever know. They will be there for you for the rest of your life, in a way that nobody else can come close to. You think giving up a Saturday night here or there is a pain? Wait until the little girl you’re babysitting right now is a college sophomore spending her Christmas break sleeping in your basement so that when your water breaks you can head straight to the hospital. Wait until the annoying sister shadowing you in the high school cafeteria becomes the best friend you call almost every morning, who picks your kids up from carpool in a pinch even though her minivan is also maxed out. Wait till the little brother whose diapers you really don’t feel like changing becomes one of the best men you’ve ever known, and proposes to a woman so wonderful that you ask the two of them to be your yet-unborn child’s godparents.”

The truth is, everything our parents told us: that we were each other’s first and best friends, that high school would end one day but sisterhood and brotherhood were forever, that we’d always be able to count on one another…it all came true. In spades. When I look across the bustling, loud 9:30 Mass at our parish I can see my sister and her husband sitting with their 4 little blonde children spread out across an entire row, my brother and his fiance bookending them and perhaps holding an errant toddler. Or a few rows further back I spot another sister and her husband with their two darling daughters, flanked on one end by the sister who lives with them and the nice guy she’s dating. (And heck, the only reason I’m not sitting with them is because in some fantastic stroke of divine providence, my in laws moved to Colorado 3 years ago and grandma and grandpa come to Mass with us every.single.Sunday. Hashtag freaking blessed.)

Although our personalities are as wildly differing as our heights, this vertically-blessed lineup includes a half dozen of my closest friends on earth. And truly, that’s a huge motivator when I’m knee deep in exhaustive little kid parenting, wondering if we are, in fact, maybe a little crazy for doing what we’re doing with our own family.

But then I imagine my 3 boys out for beers and a baseball game, 20 years from now. I imagine them dressed in tuxes for their sister’s wedding. I try to envision whether we’ll have another member of team testosterone join the crew come December, or if Evie will at last have a sister to confide in, fight with, and sneak out of the house with. (On second thought, perhaps I should be hoping for another boy?)

Most of all I envision the relationship the 4 – soon to be 5 – of them will one day have. A group hologram to replace the group text that I enjoy with my siblings, frequent nights out to split appetizers and catch the latest Star Wars flick, regular kid-swapping weekends to spell each other from the rigors of parenting, and always, always, a shoulder to lean on, a friend to confide in, and a fellow traveler on the journey to heaven to reach out to in times of darkness and of joy.

My little sister was instrumental in drawing me, her 3-years-older and sooooo much wiser, world-weary college veteran of a big sister out to a tiny, stinky coal town in Eastern Ohio, where I threw my life away (so I thought) and started over. Turns out that dramatic cross-country leap was the most vertical maneuver I’d make in life, still to date.

4 more siblings have since trailed after, beating a dusty path along Interstate 70 eastbound, throwing in the towel on culture and air quality for 4 years of intensive Catholicism 101; a seventh and final sibling is headed there next fall. Which means, in addition to sharing blood and parents and memories of eating cold Spaghetti-O’s straight from the can, we also share a common faith.

This is perhaps the greatest gift of all (narrowly edging out the free babysitting); that we love Jesus together, that we strive for heaven together, and that we can lock arms in a darkening culture with a diminishing moral compass and, like so many hobbits journeying towards Mordor, reassure one another “I got your back. We can do this. Together.”

And that’s no small thing in a world that loves the darkness.

I pray this for my own children: that long after I am gone, the bonds of blood and brotherhood that bind them together will only strengthen with time, shoring them up in moments of great sorrow and great joy, and that I can await them confidently (fingers-crossed) in the life after this one, knowing they’re helping each other along the way when I’m no longer there to guide them.