Never enough

MC has been working hard this week perfecting his role as "Henchman" in his school's Prairie Fire Theater production of Sleeping Beauty.  That's right--the kids, along with 2 actors from PFT, are putting this show together in one week--it's really amazing how it all comes together.  Click here if you would like to read about AKD's experience last year playing Sid in Tom Sawyer.
 

I think it's going well.  As a Henchman, MC doesn't have a whole lot of lines, and he's got a lot of fellow Henchmen he can watch for cues as to how to behave.  If he forgets the words while they're singing their songs, he can just move his mouth and I'm pretty sure the rest of the gang will fill in.  He's been having a little bit of a rough week at home and school, I think because the busy-ness of this week is a little too much for him, but I don't think that will affect his performance.

Yesterday MC came home with an invitation to the show that he can give to a friend or relative whom he would like to invite.

But we don't have anyone to give it to.

This is one of the hardest parts about living far from family--our kids never have grandparents or aunts and uncles or cousins or Godparents at their "things"--their concerts, their games, their belt ceremonies, their blue and gold events, their Christmas programs, their science fairs, their birthday parties, their church milestones, their pinewood derbies, their biography showcases...

I go to these events, and sit by myself or, sometimes, with my husband, and look around at all of the people who are saving chairs for grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles; I look at all the cousins who are sitting together.  After the "thing," the extended families gather around the young performers or players or scholars or honorees in little clusters around the room, congratulating them, telling them how great they are, how much they enjoyed the show.  And here, over to one side, is our little family.  Just us.  Hardly enough to surround the special boy.

This is the way it was for me when I was growing up.  The closest we ever lived to extended family was about a 7 hour drive away (that's not counting my uncle, who followed us around, and even lived with us for a time).  I must confess, I never noticed everyone else having family and us having none.  So perhaps my children don't notice either.  I hope they don't notice.

Some days, I don't feel like I am enough to be even a satisfactory mommy to these three boys of mine, but even on a good day, there is definitely not enough of me to be their mommy and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, and sometimes even Dad.  Some days, I am it for them.  I am all they have and it's not enough.  I am not enough.