Last week I went to the Junior High to pick up some sombreros the Spanish teacher was letting Max borrow for a video he was making for an assignment.

When I got there I noticed it was lunch and spotted Elle sitting with a hoard of friends. I snuck over and took this picture with my iPhone (with my finger covering part of the lens…I am such a professional iPhone-picture-taking-girl 🙂It was a minute in time, but it’s been in the back of my mind ever since.

This life my children lead during the day is so foreign to me. They are maneuvering classes and friendships and lunch treats while I am writing and scrubbing and cooking and errand-running in my own parallel universe.

Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch how they interact with friends, how respectful they are with their teachers, how hard they work on assignments, etc. I wish I could know the details when they come home sad so I could comfort them better. I wish I could be in on those triumphant moments that make them come home on top of the world.

I just think it’s so strange that lunch there at the junior high is so foreign to me but that is my daughter’s whole world for over seven hours each day, five days a week. It’s all good, but it made me miss her and be so excited and happy for her at the same time.

I’m so sad that some of that childhood I love so much is slipping through my fingers so quickly. But I’m so grateful my kids have such good friends. And such good schools.

I’m also really grateful that we get to be done with those good schools for a little while when that last bell rings this Thursday! 🙂

14 Comments

  1. I think the same thing when I see folks with kids…wondering what it is like…to raise children. It is why I enjoy reading your blog. What an adventure!

  2. This is what I'm afraid of! Not knowing what my kid is experiencing all day! Does it get any easier? (My child is only 2 but I seriously dread the day when he has his own life, ha ha!)

  3. I totally feel this way all the time. I feel the same about my husband's parallel world too. He in his with those interactions and I in mine only to come together at the end of the day to the same world. It's an interesting thing to think about.

  4. Wow! The kids are dressed so modest (look like Mormons 🙂 That looks like a great school! I really miss it out west.

  5. I'm here with grandma and we have just looked through the last couple of weeks of blogs and she is thrilled, she just keeps saying, "It's a miracle" and " that picture is so cute! "

    She sends hugs to all the kids along with me!

  6. i love this perspective! so true, so much goes on during the day in their lives, and all of the questions that we ask will never give us a full picture, but being active and popping into the school at times helps a lot…love this little glimpse;)

  7. I have felt the same way about my children – they experience so much and I miss it! Then this year my youngest started school and he was so concerned about missing our "home days" and not knowing what I am doing all day while he's at school. So it works both ways…

  8. I think of this all the time! It is almost bizarre to me how much of my kids life I don't know, especially when I think back to knowing every morsel they've eaten and when they used the bathroom last… who they spoke to and how they interacted.

    Sadly, I don't feel as confident that my kids days are stellar. We are praying about it…

  9. I love reading your blog, especially lately. I babysit for a family with 5 children who just lost their mother, and I can't even try to imagine how their mom kept up with all they were doing!! she was in PTA, involved in their pre-schools, and at church… Moms can just do everything, and no one can ever replace them! Thanks for blogging about a mom's perspective 🙂

  10. I think the same thing about my kid…and she is just a kinder. I am just starting out in this mothering journey, but I KNOW there will be so many times when I wish I could feel what they feel the way they feel it. Of course, I am still that mom who cries each time we reach a milestone, or first day of school 😉

  11. My kids aren't old enough for school yet, but I know this is how I will feel, too. Thank goodness for summer and school holidays and weekends! I taught 1st and 2nd grades for 5 years and it will be interesting to be the parent and not the teacher a year from this August when my daughter starts kindergarten. Thanks for giving voice to these thoughts and feelings that must be universal for all mothers with kids in school.

  12. i'm so glad i'm not the only one that feels that way..! except i don't have kids yet–i just like to creep on people and i always wonder about others' lives!

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