No Sound From the Backseat.
Every day after school, the boys come home and go straight up to their respective rooms. They shut their doors and I don’t see them for hours.
Sometimes I whine during dinner. “Nobody talks to me anymore,” I say. Or, if I think about it, I ask if anyone will ever play a board game with me again. The kids will talk during dinner. Mostly they make fun of me for being … well, me. This is a great source of amusement for them.
So I drive the kids to school in the mornings. This, I think, is an opportunity for me to bond with my children, stay connected, find out what’s going on in their lives. I also throw out reminders about what they should think about, you know, during their day. The reminders are probably unnecessary and I can guarantee they are unappreciated.
Mostly, I just want to have a conversation – any conversation – with them. I want to know how they feel about things, what they’re thinking about, what songs they’re listening to with those earbuds shoved into their ears. So on some mornings, I try to talk about my feelings.
Like today: “I had a dream about Xena last night.”
No sound from the backseat.
“Well, I guess trying to talk about my feelings is getting the same results as saying nothing at all, so I guess I will just talk to myself,” I said.
Shane piped up. “I said, ‘uh.'”
I didn’t hear “uh.” But truthfully, that is about as much as I get from them these days.
I feel bad that I didn’t appreciate their incessant talking, singing, humming, and maniacal laughter when we drove to elementary school. I kept telling them to tone it down, be quieter, blah blah blah.
What I wouldn’t give, now, to relive the insanity of their childhood.