Prologue: It's New Year's 2025 and I'm home sick with COVID. I've already streamed the entire internet, so I'm flipping through my old blog archives. I'm finding some sweet articles that I never published.
Here's a hit of nostalgia from July 2015 when the kids were with their dad Buddy in Beijing for a few weeks. Enjoy!
During the school year my kids are with me in Nashville and I'm on duty 24/7.
And then during summer break they're with Buddy in Beijing.
Imagine you're a professional runner and you run all the time. I don't mean like a marathon runner who runs a marathon and then recovers for a few days. I mean let's imagine your job is to test treadmills so all day long, you run on treadmills. You hop from one to the next, just running on them, all day long, every day.
Let's pretend that Professional Treadmill Tester is a thing.
And then someone tells you to get in bed and not get up for two months.
It's sort of like that.
Right now I'm in bed. Literally, I am in bed. And I'm missing my kids.
By the way I have a friend who runs treadmills all day long every day and she never gets bed rest, so I don't mean to complain. I'm just saying it's weird for me to go from one extreme to the other.
I have three strategies to help me survive when I miss my kids.
1. FaceTime
They are 13 hours ahead of us and I can see the midnight sky behind them as we talk, while the sun streams through the blinds onto the carpet here in Nashville.
Audrey talks with me the most. She tells me about her tennis lessons, and about who they had lunch with that day, and how annoying Grant is being.
Audrey talks with me the most. She tells me about her tennis lessons, and about who they had lunch with that day, and how annoying Grant is being.
Grant is usually either falling asleep, asleep, or just waking up when I call. The most I get out of him lately is, "Mom, I'm asleep. Can I just sleep? Mom, I love you."
On the rare occasions when he is not asleep he shows me his latest injury. The gash on his leg where he "fell on a wood thing" while he was playing with his friends in the park. The scratch across his stomach where he "scraped up against a metal thing" while he was playing with his friends in the neighborhood.
"Well sweetie I'm just glad you're protecting your head," I say. "Please always remember to protect your head."
"See??" he yells accusingly at Buddy, who is standing in the doorway and smiling. "Mom at least thought of something positive to say!"
And for a moment I am happy that it is Buddy who is running the treadmills now.
2. Play our songs
For Audrey, it's Holocene from Bon Iver. It's a smooth, cold song that we listen to together when we want to relax.
I can see for miles. I can see for miles across the indigo blue waters, all the way to my daughter in China. She's smiling, painting her nails, talking her dad into yet another shopping trip to H&M.
For Grant, the song is Uptown Funk from Mark Ronson. We listen to it together in the car on the way to school.
The lyrics are really hard to understand so we just guess what they're saying. We make up lines that we think would be good. We laugh at each other's lyrics. We bleep out the bad words. The stuff we come up with makes no sense at all.
I know we could google the lyrics. But we don't want to know them.
If none of that works, I have one last strategy I use when I miss them.
3. Write
Thank you for being there to read. It's more fun talking about them when I know you're there.
On the rare occasions when he is not asleep he shows me his latest injury. The gash on his leg where he "fell on a wood thing" while he was playing with his friends in the park. The scratch across his stomach where he "scraped up against a metal thing" while he was playing with his friends in the neighborhood.
"Well sweetie I'm just glad you're protecting your head," I say. "Please always remember to protect your head."
"See??" he yells accusingly at Buddy, who is standing in the doorway and smiling. "Mom at least thought of something positive to say!"
And for a moment I am happy that it is Buddy who is running the treadmills now.
2. Play our songs
For Audrey, it's Holocene from Bon Iver. It's a smooth, cold song that we listen to together when we want to relax.
... and at once I knew I was not magnificent
High above the highway aisle
(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
I could see for miles, miles, miles
High above the highway aisle
(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
I could see for miles, miles, miles
I can see for miles. I can see for miles across the indigo blue waters, all the way to my daughter in China. She's smiling, painting her nails, talking her dad into yet another shopping trip to H&M.
For Grant, the song is Uptown Funk from Mark Ronson. We listen to it together in the car on the way to school.
The lyrics are really hard to understand so we just guess what they're saying. We make up lines that we think would be good. We laugh at each other's lyrics. We bleep out the bad words. The stuff we come up with makes no sense at all.
I know we could google the lyrics. But we don't want to know them.
If none of that works, I have one last strategy I use when I miss them.
3. Write
Thank you for being there to read. It's more fun talking about them when I know you're there.
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