Friday, April 22, 2011

Just 1 minute of your time mommy

How easy it is for little ones to smile. My 2 year old comes in today after drawing 3 or 4 lines on a piece of paper and tells her dad and I that she made us a picture. We asked her what it was and with a huge smile, filled with pride, she says it's a swing and a slide.. We tell her thank you and that her picture is beautiful and again she lights up. Later she comes in with a pot lid on her head dancing and singing "ming, ming, ming" and then daddy and I have to take a turn as well. Again, the huge smile crosses her face and she squeals with laughter. Mind you, at this time I was cleaning our bedroom and daddy had a sleeping baby on him. Normally I would have hurried her out of the room so that she didn't wake the baby or interrupt my cleaning, but I'm glad I didn't. Those two 1 minute "interruptions" made her day as well as mine.  Have you ever noticed how easy it is to make them smile? All day long we have things to do and we rush them, shush them, and shoo them away. Do we forget how much they look up to us? How they want so badly to have us acknowledge their artwork(yes even the drawings on the wall), their tower of blocks, their dolls all ready for a tea party....how they want so badly for us to just take the time to acknowledge THEM. Life gets so busy for us adults. I personally have a baby to care for, laundry to do, a house to clean, meals to make, schoolwork for the kids, bills to pay, errands to run, etc. Some days there aren't enough hours in the day to get those things done let alone time for me or fun time with the kiddos. But, how much time do we spend on the computer throughout the day, how much watching tv, doing a hobby, _______, etc. you can fill in the blanks here? Our kids would love hours a day of our time but sometimes that just isn't realistic. What is realistic is just 1 minute. One minute of your time when they want to show you something, 1 minute to just love on them, 1 minute to read a book (okay maybe more than 1 minute but you get the gist). This isn't asking too much of us, it's our children just asking us to be their parents.  Am I saying that we shouldn't spend time on the computer or watch tv or do anything for ourselves? No, that's not what I am saying at all. We all need time to ourselves as well, but to put a smile on the face of your child is def. worth 1 minute here and there. You might find that singing with a pot lid on your head is kinda fun or that drawing scribbles on a piece of paper and making up what it is as you go along is a nice release. I promise the dishes will still be there, the power bill can wait a minute, facebook won't delete all the statuses you miss, your voicemail will pick up and the texts will be there waiting. And your child will be ecstatic. that you gave them that minute. Let's remember that our children are learning from us. We are readying them for the world, do we want to teach them that their happiness isn't important. It is up to us as parents to build them up, to teach them that they are important and worthy of some one's time. We are responsible for building their self worth, there will be enough in life that will it tear it down so we need to give them a nice solid foundation.
That's all for now folks...I have some children to play with :)



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