Only as happy as your least happy child

So that’s not a good mantra.  I understand that.  And really, with the drama and intensity that my kids have when it comes to temper tantrums, it’s not a good prescription for my own mental health.  There has to be distance, for their sake as well as my own.  If I allowed myself to get drawn into their unhappiness, then I wouldn’t be able to help them see how to get themselves out of it.  Which a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over again.

That being said – when my kids are HAPPY, I’m blissful.  This morning was the first EVER day back to school after a vacation when Sam wasn’t miserable.  He didn’t, not even once, mutter anything at all about not wanting to go back to school.  That’s unprecedented, and you have absolutely no idea how happy it made me.

Sam’s struggled so much with school.  Not with academics, but with separating, with having his own identity outside of being next to me.  It was really, really, REALLY hard for him.  Hard for me, hard for Marc, even hard for Jessica.  He’s finally at a point where he’s just happy being Sam, without being attached to me.  He’s happy to go to school, and bounce around with Ryan and Jack and Nicky, and Phoebe and Malak and all the other kids at school.  He’s my boy – the boy that I saw all the time at home, happy go lucky, sweet, funny, rambunctious and active, but now he doesn’t feel so scared and anxious and unsafe at school anymore.  His safety isn’t tied into me anymore – he’s confident and capable and secure and can’t even begin to express how incredible that feels, as his mother, to know that he’s thriving at school.

Today will go down as one of the best days ever.  Not only because Sam was blissful about going to school, but also because Miss Jessica was happy and content, and Julie is bopping around in her tiara and pretty dress, convinced she’s a princess.  Because Marc kissed me extra before he left for the day, because I’m going to a playdate with Aviva and the twins, when Julie will dance around with her best buds and I’ll get to snuggle baby Zoe for a few hours.  Because I’m making pasta tonight for dinner – which is everyone’s favorite, and then I’ll get to curl up with the two older kids and watch the third hour of the documentary I recorded over the weekend on the 1980’s.

Today’s a day when I’m awfully glad to have the life I’ve got.