Lion and Magic Boy

Today The Ex arrived to pick up Serena and Eric for a couple of hours while Nathaniel and I spent some Quality One-on-One Time together (Serena’s turn is tomorrow and Eric gets some almost daily). It was generous of The Ex and I am appreciative of the opportunity, and no I wasn’t advised to say that by my legal team or anything. This was my idea from earlier in the summer and suddenly it became clear that summer is ending and we hadn’t done it so it was time to act.

It’s a little sad that 1.) I have to orchestrate time alone with my kids, and 2.) it happens so infrequently that this is in fact the first time we’ve ever done it, but I guess that’s the way of things when you’re a single mom of multiple chlildren who hates to rely on other people for things.

Anyway, I gave Nathaniel the choice of a.) playing tennis or b.) going on a bike ride together where I normally ride. He chose tennis, much to my slight disappointment, but when I was changing for tennis he informed me he had changed his mind. Good. He can receive psychic signals.

I let him ride my old bike because 1.) “oh by the way I need my seat raised”, which is fine except 2.) for that I need to find a wrench, and also 3.) the front brakes don’t work at all, so 4.) between the wrench and the brakes I made the command decision (for which I get paid the big bucks) that putting the seat down on my old bike was easier.

Have I mentioned that this boy is an inch shorter than me? And I’m fairly tall, though according to the height chart in the needle room during yesterday’s vaccination extravaganza, I’m not as tall as I thought I was. Nathaniel’s 11. Going to be tall, that one. At his new school they thought he was an incoming 8th grader. He’ll stand out in 6th, then.

The ride began well, a bit slower than usual of course since I didn’t want to tax him. He doesn’t really have anywhere to ride on his own where he feels safe since the roads are rural and cars go pretty fast, so the idea was to take him out with me where there was safety, but at the same time I didn’t feel the need to give him such a workout that he’d never want to do it again.

He was cautious on the downhills, not wanting to go too fast. Still, for the first few miles (we rode about 20) he seemed perky and rode alongside me quite a bit.

But before long, there was major lagging, even though I was riding quite slowly. My neck still hurts from looking behind me to see if he was still there. He was really game, though, and every time I checked in with him he wanted to keep going.

But the hills, the hills did him in.

And during the whole ride I kept thinking about what I wanted out of the experience, which was to have an opportunity to really connect with my son. Instead, I was riding a bicycle 50 feet in front of him and shouting back at him from time to time. That doesn’t feel like connection to me. I built this event up in my mind so much and was really looking forward to giving him something, giving him a piece of me, because I haven’t been very present for the children these past several months, both physically with all my travel and emotionally with all the letting-go I’ve been doing and mentally with the fact that there’s a laptop glued to me most of the day.

So I got to thinking about tomorrow’s event with Serena, which we decided will be a session of drawing together, but I already know it will be me trying to create art while telling Serena “just a minute” if she needs help or has a question or a comment or needs another piece of paper. I know I will become engrossed in the opportunity to lose myself in creation and, just as I was mostly thinking this afternoon about my own experience on the bike rather than Nathaniel’s experience, I will miss the opportunity to connect with her more deeply.

Is it enough for them, then, to simply experience their mother in her own environment? Is that an experience of connection for the children? Or should I be doing something different, moving toward them, engaging them? And (I ask myself, totally a rhetorical question), is that enough? Because I think that’s what there is. I had nearly 12 years of doing more, trying to do more, and I don’t think I can do that anymore because a large part of me was lost in the process.

But I say that and still wish I was a whole different kind of mother.

[tags]cycling, mothers and sons, parenting, mothering, expectations[/tags]