Mama Exposed 5

Okay, I'm going to just admit it; I don't always like playing with my kids.  In fact, I'm pretty terrible at it. I just have such a difficult time sitting there on the carpet trying to be entertained by Candyland or Legos or babydolls.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore my children.  I love to watch them and to be around them...but so often I'm just tired and not feeling creative or frankly, my adult brain is just not thoroughly engaged by the interests of a 2 and a 4 yr. old. And, as often as not, I'm simply distracted.  I often find that my play time with the girls is forced and not as enthusiastic is it maybe should be.  I do make time to do this because I'm trying to make the most of my time with them.  I know that someday they will no longer come to me to ask if I will play, and I will miss that.  But it isn't always easy and it isn't always what I feel I'd rather be doing.  I think that this is probably normal to some degree, and I would wager that a lot of moms probably feel pretty guilty about this.  There are days when, though I am a stay-at-home-mom, I realize at the end of the day that I didn't really play with my kids at all.  They sort of played around me or near me, but I wasn't particularly engaged with them as I went about my daily chores or whatever...and I think about how I missed another day when I could have made the most of enjoying my children and somehow I feel that I've let them down and myself down, and in a way I have.  Then there are days when I actually do play with them...but I'm not really engaged and they practically have to drag it out of me - and then I feel guilty about that one too because I don't want to communicate to them that they aren't important or other things deserve my time more or that I don't want to play with them.  Because really I do, I want to be the kind of parent that can get lost in play for hours with my kids.  I'm working on that...and occasionally, we do manage to really play together and I enjoy it and receive it as a gift.  This is all some weird balancing trick that I haven't got the hang of yet and by the time I do, it will probably be too late.  I suppose that is why my children's grandmothers have no problem just playing with them.