I'm a mom of 3, including twins. Now that they are adolescents, is hard to come to terms with them not needing me all the time.

• I'm a mom of three kids and have spent over a decade with them needing me.
• It's not been easy to come to terms with their attention and interests shifting elsewhere.

I almost burst into tears the first time both my twins rebuffed my request for a family movie night.

I should have seen the signs — slinking away silently halfway through TV shows, labored sighs about previously loved family activities — but either I didn't see or didn't want to.

My twins were growing up and, sadly, growing away from me.

We were super close

Our family had always been tight. My twins — a boy and a girl who recently turned 12 — my son who just turned 13, and my husband had always had an enviable vibe about us. We always seemed to be excited about the same activities, laughed at each other's jokes, and otherwise enjoyed moments spent together.

At the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, our family dynamic became heavy and tense. All three of my children, who had loved singing in the car, making sloppy desserts, and loving on their mom and dad, suddenly wanted little to do with us.

After having spent the past 12 years in a snuggly cocoon of arms and legs, I had unwittingly been jettisoned into the harsh light, cold and alone, no longer able to rely on the constancy of my children's presence.

I was confused

At first, I was confused, wondering if I'd done something to offend them. That confusion quickly gave way to anger that our daily routine, which I adored, would no longer be. It wasn't soon after that the loneliness set in.

I thought this is what empty nesters must feel like.

My kids' personalities were changing before my eyes. Enthusiastic smiles turned to frowns. The parts of our family routine that I could previously set my watch to were no longer happening.

They had become adolescents, and I wasn't prepared.

No one tells parents that one day will give way to the next and everything might change. No parent knows when that day will come, and the feeling of shock was compounded for me as three children evolved before my eyes nearly simultaneously.

I learned rather quickly that they'd prefer to spend time with their friends, reading, or lost in their music. But I was desperate to reconnect and was silently waiting for the best time to strike.

I needed them back

I had taken my kids and my parents out for Sunday dinner at a kitschy family-style restaurant with a gift shop that offered a large variety of items as well as vintage candy and homemade fudge.

My kids were coming down from a dance that happened the Friday before, each brow furrowed behind a pair of headphones. There wasn't much talk. My attempts to ask how the dance was were met with "fine," time and again.

I needed to break the ice.

As we toughed out the 90-plus minute wait to sit down, we cruised the gift shop. I pushed items at them — jewelry for my daughter, silly slippers for my son — and was met with silence and groans.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tall display with plush snakes hanging down from their heads. They were all brightly colored, some were glittery, some iridescent, and some were well over five feet tall.

"Anybody want a snake?" I asked, waving the longest one I could find all around me.

They all looked up and smiled. My son immediately said yes. The snake was apparently not uncool and just the right amount of silly. I breathed a sigh of relief. All three started talking enthusiastically about the stuffed creatures around us. My older son decided on an octopus, but my daughter held out for fudge.

When we sat down to eat, my one of my sons fought to sit next to me. I was silently tickled. My daughter tapped my foot with hers under the table and giggled, and then my sons joined in.

At any other time, I would have sternly requested they stop mashing my foot. But they were talking to me. They were smiling and laughing. And that was worth whatever damage may have occurred to my foot afterward.

I understood then that through the broodiness and the angst, the sighs and the looks, they were still children inside who also craved connection with their parents. And that though sometimes their little lives and emotions take them away from our family life, they would come back.

I also understood I needed to step back to allow that to happen.