One on one time
When the father of my boys came into our lives my daughter and I had been each others whole family for more than 8 years. I knew that I wanted to maintain a closeness in our relationship and made sure we had one on one time, just her and I. Of course when her brother was born it was with him at first, but as he started to space out breastfeeding and he started to eat other foods we could be gone for longer. We went for coffee, went to the movies or went shopping. Sometimes my daughter would specifically ask for time together just her and I and I knew I had to make that happen. This is something I have maintained in different ways over the years, and I am so glad I have. My daughter is one of my favourite people to spend time with, my broke bestie.
A couple of years back, when I was still living with the father of my boys, I suggest my daughter and I do a staycation. We checked into a hotel, went to dinner, hung out in the hotel room watching movies and with face masks on and eating snacks. We slept in. My middle son heard about this and wanted to do the same thing, so I took him on a staycation too. We did this twice. Then life happened and I felt like I couldn’t prioritize a night at a hotel for each child. But my son kept on asking for it. He had such fond memories of it, and I rarely get time with only him. I more often spend one on one time with my oldest or my youngest, but my middle child doesn’t get a lot of time with only me. So this year I promised him we would do it again. I asked him which hotel he wanted to go to, he wanted to go to the same one we hade stayed at before, Scandic Triangeln. He wanted to have dinner, ice cream and buy a lot of candy, so this is what we did. As we checked in I asked if we could stay high up, so we got a room on the 19th floor, the top floor. My son thought the elevator ride was a bit scary, but I loved looking out over Malmö, all the way to Denmark.
“Mama, can I borrow your phone and take a picture? You look like Batman.”
We had a nice stay and my son fell asleep watching a movie. I sat for long and watched as the rain clouds came in, the swallows flying over the sky and finally the darkness of night spreading over the city. It was something so simple, but still luxury to be able to do this with my son. It reminded me how each relationship is important and needs to be nurtured. When we spend time like that, one on one, my son feels fully seen. I think that is important for children, to be seen and heard. I hope we will go on more staycations and vacations one on one over the years, it’s a way to connect and check in, it’s a way to see each other.
