Soak Up the Joy

I recently read a blog and this woman didn't like it when people told her to enjoy her children now.  I could picture the quintessential older woman cooing over her kids and spouting this epitaph at her.  I've had those moments myself.  I get it.  I'm in that phase of life now and when my kids are screaming and running around like annoying little banshees, you can believe that I'm not thinking about how much I'm enjoying them.  I can also get on board with her point that she doesn't need more reasons to feel guilty.  That if she's not enjoying them right now she must be doing something wrong.  As a stay-at-home-mama, I work hard.  Very hard.  And sometimes there are days when even though I've worked myself into one enormous, tired, tizzy for my family, I didn't do much with my kids.  Hearing, in the back of my mind, the voice of some woman, who isn't living my life at the moment, telling me to enjoy my kids, makes me feel guilty for not trying harder to enjoy them, when, bottom line, there just wasn't time today.  I don't need help feeling guilty.  I can do guilty just fine all by my lonesome. I get it.  I get it all.

But I think that's why it's especially important to try to enjoy them now.  And I have been.  I have been equal measures of annoyed with them, too, but I've been very pointedly trying to slow down that part of my brain that pushes me to do more "work" and less "play."  I've been trying to really listen when they're talking to me.  When I'm asked to play a game, instead of instantly saying "no," I carefully weigh what needs to be done against what can wait and, more often than not, I play.  I've  also been purposely trying to spend time especially with Sully, who seems to get the short of the stick quite a bit.  The result?  A more joyful, loving, middle-child and a mama with more sympathy. If I can give that gift to all of them, why wouldn't I?  My dirty floor isn't going to love me back.  It's time to invest in the things, or rather, people, who are worthy of my precious time.

My amazing husband usually puts the kids to bed for me and on the off evening when the task falls to me, I'm usually greatly annoyed.  I mean, I put in over 8 hours with them during the day!  Mama needs a break!  But, lately, this shift in feeling about the kids encroaching on time I consider "mine" has been happening. I'm going to attribute it to God because I'm not sure I'd be feeling like this any other way.  I helped with bedtime last night and as Theron began the nightly prayer routine with them, I was moved and humbled by how much I was missing, even though I see them ALL DAY!  Quinn starts first.  He practically begs to start!  He starts off, in his sweet and yet strangely deep, two year old voice, "Dear God..." and then he says something unintelligible and Theron starts listing things to be thankful for and Quinn repeats him, "Mama, Eva, Sully, Baby Ty, Grandma, Pop..." Then Sully or Eva prays, then Theron, and last night, because I was there, Quinn said, "Mama turn!"  So I prayed and Eva said, when I was done, "Mama, that was a really beautiful prayer!"  (I prayed that they would all believe in Jesus one day.)

My kids keep me hopping.  No doubt about it.  But I've never been one to enjoy sitting still for very long and they aren't going to be little for very long, so I'd say I'm right where I need to be and if I'm able to actually find joy in the tedium of toddlers and babies, I'm going to soak it up!