Ryan Time

Ryan has been asking me to spend more time with him lately, and it absolutely breaks my heart. He wants to play catch with me, or sit down and play video games together. He asks me to draw with him or go out front and kick a ball around. And most of the time I can't. Going out front means the whole gang has to tag along with us, and then my full time job is keeping Andrew out of the street and refereeing the other two. If we sit down to draw or play games together, someone else will always urgently need me. Or Andrew will climb onto the table and start destroying what we are doing. It is literally impossible to spend time alone together when his brothers and sister are awake. Ryan is frustrated and so am I.

 I hate having to tell Ryan no, especially when his request is so sweet. I want to be able to spend focused time with him, but his siblings are still so needy. I feel such guilt over turning him down!!

I was recently talking to a mentor mom at my Mops group, and she said something she always did with her 4 kids was let them talk to her at night. They may not always be ready to talk after school, or when other people are around. But if they came into him her room at night wanting to talk, she never turned them away. Her words felt like a punch in the stomach, because lately Ryan had been asking me to lay with him at night and half the time I said no because it was just too late or I was SO tired. Also, I kind of figured it was a stall tactic to stay up later.

I felt so convicted by her words that I immediately resolved to start saying yes. Every night during the past month when Ryan has been tucked into bed, he has said "Mommy lay with me?" And I have said yes. (The other kids go to bed first, so it's literally the only time of day I don't have to take care of his siblings. And I know that Andrew never sleeps more than an hour after going to bed, so I literally only have minutes.) I find that when we are laying there in the dark he is much more likely to talk about things he wouldn't normally talk about. It can be serious things like what happens at school, or questions about God. It can also be about which level he just completed in Super Mario Brothers, or whether I packed chips in his lunch. The point is, he has my full attention and he feels loved and listened to. I really cherish this time with my Ryan.