I Need Everyone to Leave Me Alone. Wait, Where Are You Going?

Being a parent means spending a shocking amount of your life caught somewhere between please leave me alone and you are literally the most beautiful, brilliant human being I have ever seen.

There is no middle ground.

One minute I’m looking at one of my kids thinking, How did I make you? You’re incredible. I love you so much it physically hurts.

The next minute I’m standing in the kitchen wondering why you just ate an entire bag of donuts approximately three seconds after I bought them. Dinner is almost ready. There are other people who live here.

Why are you like this?

Who raised you?

Oh.

Apparently me.

And it’s not just the food. I can be actively holding the front door when one of my kids decides that they would also like to hold the front door. Does this child wait the approximately two seconds it would take for me to walk through?

Absolutely not.

I get shoved out of the way like we’re fighting for the last available seat on a lifeboat.

Ma’am.

This is not a contest. You do not need to physically assault me. Allow me to move and you can hold the damn door.

It’s not that serious.

Except then my stupid mom brain has to notice that she really just wanted to hold the door for everyone, and suddenly I’m thinking about what a sweet kid she is.

Which is irritating because I was trying to be mad.

My personal favorite, though, is when nobody has needed me for thirty straight minutes. Everyone is fine. Everyone is occupied. There is another fully capable parent inside this house.

I announce that I’m going to take a shower.

CODE RED.

Suddenly someone is beating on the bathroom door like they have a warrant.

“MOM!”

“What?!”

“Where did the donuts go?”

“Your sister ate them all.”

Silence.

“Wait. Why couldn’t you just ask your dad?!”

More silence.

Of course.

Because apparently the location of the missing donuts is information that can only be obtained from Mom, and it absolutely cannot wait until I have finished washing my hair.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time wishing these people would need me just a little bit less. Please stop following me. Please stop asking me where something is before you’ve even looked for it. Please stop needing something the second I sit down.

Please let me shower without initiating a household emergency response.

And then they go to bed.

The house gets quiet. Nobody needs me.

Finally.

This is what I’ve wanted all day.

So naturally, my brain waits approximately six minutes before saying:

Hey. When was the last time you checked on the kids?

They’re sleeping.

Sure. But are they breathing?

No. We are not doing this.

Except apparently we are.

And now I’m creeping into bedrooms in the dark because my brain has suddenly decided that one of my children may have simply stopped breathing without notifying me.

I stand there watching their chest move.

Once.

Okay.

Twice.

Clearly alive.

And somehow I’m still standing there five minutes later because apparently I am the overnight respiratory department.

Then they move a little.

And there it is.

That stupid feeling.

There’s my baby.

The same child who can make me question every decision I’ve ever made before breakfast is suddenly lying there asleep, and all I can think about is how perfect they are. How beautiful they are. How smart and funny and weird and completely themselves they’ve become.

And how unbelievably lucky I am that I get to be their mom.

That’s the part nobody adequately explains.

You spend years wanting five minutes when nobody needs you. Five minutes without hearing “Mom.” Five minutes without someone touching you, asking you a question, needing food, losing something, fighting with somebody, or urgently requiring information about the current whereabouts of a bag of donuts.

But one day, they actually won’t need you like this.

There will be showers nobody interrupts. Groceries that survive longer than an afternoon. Bedrooms you don’t have to check at night. A house that stays quiet.

And apparently I’m supposed to want that.

Except I don’t.

Not really.

I want them to grow up. I want them to become independent. I want them to build their own lives and become exactly who they’re supposed to be.

I just also need them to remain my babies forever.

Completely reasonable.

So yes, my children drive me absolutely insane. They eat my groceries. They interrupt my showers. They occasionally shove me off porches in pursuit of their own personal goals.

And I love them so much that sometimes I have to stand beside their beds in the middle of the night just to reassure myself that they’re still here.

They are, without question, my favorite people in the entire world.

But they are awake now.

So could everyone please leave me alone for ten minutes?