Empty Nest, or Learning to Fill a Plate

My 5-year-old goes to school seven hours a day, five days a week, and my 3-year-old goes to preschool three hours a day, three days a week, and I have empty nest syndrome.

(I had never heard of "empty nest" as a syndrome, but when I googled it, sure enough, Wikipedia delivered a definition. However the definition seems to refer to the time when a child leaves home as in no longer lives at home, not day school leaving home.)

I suppose it comes of falling into Attachment Parenting, not through any particular belief in that theory, but because of economic factors and geographic distance from extended family. I wore my babies in Bjorns, slings, mei tais, and backpacks. I breastfed them past their first birthdays. They co-slept with us. We hung out with homeschoolers, and even officially tried it for seven weeks. I was always with my children!

Well, not always always. I participate in occasional Moms' Night Out events, preferring the ones where we all meet with a project to do or with items to swap rather than at a restaurant. My husband regularly takes the kids for a half-day to his parents' house so I can be home doing whatever gives me mental peace.

But this big change hits me as the sunlight diminishes, as the half-birth-year crazies hit, and my estrogen level plummets, mimicking menopause with sweats and a whole list of other symptoms. While my doctor prescribes pills, increasing the dosage each month, one of my natural lifestyle friends prescribed me a book: Real Foods: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck. It's not a book of menus or recipes or lists, but a chatty philosophy of food. It certainly has me thinking about food, and I hate thinking about food or spending time dealing with food! Of course, reading a book is so much better... it kind of bridges the gap. Until dinner time anyway.

...

What a mess is this entry! I start out with empty nest, get waylaid by a book, and meanwhile I have four baskets of clean laundry to fold and a Snow White costume to sew. I think I'd better go eat supper and pack tomorrow's school snacks and lunches.