My oldest will be starting Kindergarten in August. In just a few short months he will be in school more waking hours than he is at home, 5 days a week. I have been blessed to stay-at-home with our kids and I believe the sacrifices we've made are worth it. I'm not going to lie--there have been some HARD days where I wished I could send him to school and let somebody else deal with his endless questions and his temper. There have been days I longed for a break and have dreamt of how "easy" life will be for me when he goes to school.
As August, 2012 approaches I am becoming increasingly aware that the time I have with my son during the day is drawing to a close. God has been teaching me a lot in the past 6 months about priorities and most of those lessons have centered around how much time I spend daily interacting with those I love the most. This summer I resolved to make the most of this last year before my son goes to Kindergarten and focusing on spending as much time with him as possible. (I've even blogged about it before in September. You can find the links here and here) To add fuel to this desire to spend more time just "being" with my kids I have observed my son's Love Language is quality time.
My son attends preschool 9-11:30 MWF and I decided this summer that I was going to clear our schedules on Tuesdays and Thursdays for family time, instead of running around to play dates and other commitments. My MOMs group meets Tuesday mornings, and because of how far we live from church, attending this meeting from 9-11am meant leaving home at 7:45am and getting home around noon. After 5 years of involvement I backed out of the MOMs group this year to spend more time with my kids.
I don't get much "one-on-one" time with my oldest, since his little sister is always around :) Yesterday my husband took a vacation day so he could have one more day off before returning to work after the holidays. I knew my son needed a hair cut so when I woke up I told my husband that I was taking our son to get his hair cut and then I'd be taking him out to lunch. I'd initially planned to take him to a breakfast place that's in the same building as a local hockey rink, but when we got there my son wanted to eat at a different restaurant, that ove looked the rink. For over an hour I got to watch my son enjoy watching others skate (and ask me 5 million questions about them) and we decided we'd try our hand at ice skating another day.
After our special "date" yesterday morning the afternoon was capped off by a family trip to the park where our son attempted riding his bike without training wheels for the first time. (Our neighborhood is very hilly and is NOT condusive to learning to ride, so we haven't had much time to do that before yesterday). As I reflected on the great day we had yesterday I thanked God for the new perspective He is giving me.
The kids and I have gone on several "adventures" in the past few months and I'm looking forward to the ones we will go on between now and August.
God has given my husband and I our children, and they are only in our home for a short season. I have backed out of our culture of busyness in order to focus more on spending time with the family God has given me. There are things that need to be done (preparing meals, grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, etc.) but now I ask myself, before I make any decisions about my time, "Does my family need me more right now than _________?" Sometimes the answer is that my family is best served by me taking a "break" and allowing the kids to spend some time with Dad. Other times the answer is my family is best served when my husband and I get the chance to go out to lunch with each other and talk, while the kids stay with Grandma. Most of the time, however, the most important thing I can do for my husband and kids is to just be there with them, enjoying the activities that make them smile.
I am increasingly aware of how fast time goes, and how fast these years vanish, so I am holding on tight to the time I have left. As others have reminded me, "These ARE the 'good old days'".
Very nice post Heidi!! It's something I try to remind myself over the weekends and breaks, especially when my son is driving me nuts. When he's around my motto has been cleaning can wait because he won't. After a very trying day when he was a baby my grandma gave me a hug and said the days are long but the years are short.
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