Summer Loves

This week I get four days with just my two youngest kids. Atticus and Dietrich are down at Brad's folks in Iowa. I am enjoying the difference in rhythm. I cannot believe how much less stress and tension I have felt, though I miss the older boys, these younger two are just...well, they are just easier to make happy. And they play and act differently with each other without the older ones. I wouldn't want to erase the good things that come with the two other big personalities in our family, but I am thankful for a few days of getting to know my younger two in a different way. And I really like how much more at ease I am on outings and at home. I wonder if there is something I can do differently to keep this kind of approach to mothering, even when I have all four back together. (Or maybe it is just the added division of my attentions and the difficulty that comes with four different sets of needs/personalities and different stages of development and the exponential increase in conflict that seems to happen with all four that causes me to parent with so much more tension and sense of ever-present failure.) Thank you, Nancy and Tom, for giving me this wonderful little vacation at home -- I hope you are having so much fun together this week!