Oh, I feel for you! I do not have the patience for all of that, either, and even while I am thinking that I should just enjoy the kids now and savor the moments because they are growing up so fast, it drives me up the wall to even try to be involved in DDs games and listen to her reading. She wants to play all the time, talk all the time nonstop, and I want to go hide my head in a pillow and scream. My brain is trying to be off thinking of the things I need to be doing, and it gets so itchy when I have to try and answer the same question for the fifteenth time.
I send them to watch TV just to give my poor brain some time to focus on something for more than two seconds without an interruption. They want to go to the park, and it bores me to death, and I wish that I was one of those moms who can follow the kids around, push them on the swings, exclaim over every piece of gravel and flower, and play all their games. But I'm not. I read my book and try really hard for some silence while they are doing something else.
Wishing I had all that energy and dedication to every childhood moment is not going to make it so. I remember that my mom said more than once that she always enjoyed it when her kids got old enough to be interesting -- and she wasn't talking about age 3, or 6, or maybe even 10. And my mom was a wonderful mom to me, but I look back and see that she probably wanted to pull her hair out a lot when I was little.
Don't feel guilty about not being the Stepford mom. Take what little time you can manage for yourself -- you need it.
Oh, and the talking thing -- you spend all that time wishing they could talk, but when they start, the next 8 or 10 years (at least) are spent wishing they would stop!
