Children – nosuchtingasqualitytime

Où s’arrête le désir de justice, et où commence la mesquinerie ?

Ça n’est pas facile à dire, mais ce qui est certain est que mes enfants ont passé la limite il y a un petit bail.

They fall asleep oh so quietly

Every night, it takes me a whole hour to put my children to bed, event 90 minutes on some days, from the moment when I say « ok, let(s go brush our teeth » to the moment I return to the living room. Sometimes I feel it’s very long and I could be doing many other things, but the truth is that I love those moments.

My children are 2.5 and 5. We read a story or two in my bed, and then they fall asleep there, with me. Their dad reads the stories with us but leaves shortly afterwards. As for me, staying with them as they go from jumping little frogs to wiggling worms to cuddling kittens, in the dark, just enjoying their presence and physical closeness is something I love, even if it’s long, some days very long.

But being there when they whisper incomprehensible stories to themselves or make their doudous dance, climb on my belly, try to sleep there, go back down on the mattress, and finally stop moving, little by little. I try to notice the very moment when their breathing slows down and becomes that of a sleeping child. And they fall asleep oh so quietly. Just being there fills me with peace.

Sometimes I fall asleep myself and dream of a big enough bed for the four of us, of a room that would just be a huge bed like this one.

The only way to prove a child that you’re there for them, is to be there

My daughter quit her pacifier 3 days ago. Since then it takes her significantly longer to fall alseep at night. I could have been doing a thousand things tonight from 9 to 10 PM, but I just laid there next to her, reassuring her that I was there and that it would be all right.

It reminded me of this NYT opinion piece from a while ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-the-myth-of-quality-time.amp.html

… and that sentence from Camus, stating that time was essentially quantitative and that’s why a life ending too early was always scandalous because nothing, absolutely nothing can make up for time not lived. I have yet to retrieve the exact quotation, though.