I give credit to Nacho Libre for the title of this post. Did I ever mention that I love that movie?
It's 10:10, Neal is on-call at the hospital, I'm fighting the urge to go and get myself some icecream, and there are a million things I could blog about--or I could just go to bed. Going to bed sounds nice...but no, I told myself that I had to post SOMETHING today, so post I will.
A while ago some friends and I were talking about watching the clock when it is about time for the husband to come home from work. Someone mentioned (perhaps it was me) that it is hard to "kill time" with the children at the end of the day and everyone wants to eat dinner. Since that conversation I've thought a lot about "killing time." The more I think about it, the more I don't like the concept. I'm trying to focus more on living in the here-and-now and enjoying it.
I'm often guilty of wishing for "better days": days when I have a bigger house, days when I have more time with Neal, days when my children will respect my need for a little alone time, and so on and so forth. Although wishing and hoping for positive changes isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm staring to fear that all of the mental energy I spend on wishing will take away from my ability to love, teach, and have fun with my children today.
Today was a day in which I could have easily had the "killing time" mentality, yet I tried hard to avoid it and had a great day with my kids. As I mentioned earlier, Neal was on-call today (meaning he went into work at 6 AM and will be off at 6 AM tomorrow morning), and it also happened to be stake conference Sunday. I was quite nervous about how things would go at stake conference without Neal there to help keep the children happy, especially since conference fell right in the middle of Austin's nap time. Both children behaved exceptionally well. Austin didn't sleep, but he was happy, pleasant, and quiet (aside from one minor melt-down which easily passed). Sally played make-believe with two crayons for a good portion of the conference (I have no idea what she was imagining, but she was happy, quiet, and stayed in her seat).
I was also worried about how things would go this afternoon (Austin's nap schedule would be messed up, Sally would get bored and ask to watch a movie which doesn't fly at my house on Sunday, etc.), but my worries were in vain. Austin had a great nap (after crying himself to sleep for 25 minutes), Sally played nicely by herself for quite a while, and we read from the Friend magazine for a good chunk of time. We had a nice dinner together (Sally loved her food and asked for more!), had fun at bath-time, and made "marshmallow sandwiches" for dessert (which are really just s'mores under the broiler. Sally out of the blue asked me if she could have a "marshmallow sandwich", and I'm not sure how she got that idea).
I was amazed at how the day flew by. Although I love having Neal at home, life doesn't fall apart when he's gone. I think my children are delightful, and I love being with them every day. I want to do a better job of enjoying the simple things that I do with my children and taking advantage of the time I have to teach them, praise them, love them, and laugh with them.
I'm still brianstorming about how to achieve this (some days I do quite well, other days I fail miserably). If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
This post will have to have a part 2, because I'd like to expound on the title of this post. Hopefully it won't take me a month! For now, that ice cream is sounding pretty good...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I have been thinking about this same thing recently so I was very grateful to hear your thoughts! Also, Cameron loves Nacho Libre too! Maybe we'll all have to watch it sometime.
I agree. Killing time probably isn't the best way to spend our days. Hope the ice cream was good!
P.S. Your background seems to have disappeared.
Routines work for me. When Ryan was at MIT for ten months, it was just the kiddies and I, day in and day out. We got into a routine where every night at seven, I would literally say, "Let's take this party upstairs!" That was code for let's get ready for bed and read books. We then read each of their books. Then we would put on the i-fish (a speaker for the i pod that glows and dances) and play classical music until they fell asleep. During those ten months, bedtime was actually fun. We all loved it!
I agree that those times just before dinner can be hard too. Whenever we had a hard day like that, it was "dance contest" time. I put itunes on the computer and pumped out both adult and kids music on the speakers. We each took turns picking songs and making up dances for it. We also now have "theater performances," where I retell fairy tales and the kids have to act them out using props.
The trick for me is to get the kids to do stuff that I like to do. I hate playing Pokemon or Littlest Pet Shop with them, so I pick stuff like baking, dancing, reading, etc. that we can all have fun at.
Well said. I think that is a great perspective. Life is so much better when you're living in it! I'm definitely working on that too.
Emily - I love your writing style! What a great blog. I'm working on the whole enjoy the moment thing too. Its funny how when you remember to - life is really great!
And Stef also has some great ideas!
Post a Comment