I had planned to wait until July to come up with my first challenge...planning ahead is the key to success, after all. However, I'm going to jump in this month, albeit a few days into June, and I'll explain why. So my 4-year-old, Ben, came down with a sore throat and fever yesterday morning, which kept up anchored to the house on one of the first truly beautiful Sundays that we have had this year. Typically, we would frantically be running errands, coming home, packing up the picnic basket, then head to the pool. There, we would monitor the kids playing with their friends, while we caught up with fellow parents that we had lost touch with over the cold winter months, when we were only able to waive to one another from snow covered car windows at school drop off or pick up. The kids would play until exhausted, we would pack up the car, and usher them home to showers and bedtime. In exchange for a relaxing night, we would run around doing laundry and packing lunches for this last week of school, only to collapse on the couch only long enough to go over the week's schedule and then go to bed. This is a normal Sunday in our house, just as in so many other houses across the country. Yesterday, however, being grounded by Ben's fever and sore throat, we actually stayed home. Ben napped on and off on the couch, my husband monitored him from the other couch, while keeping one eye on a baseball game, and eventually napped himself. I cleaned out the refrigerator and then joined Hanna in the backyard, where we both sat in the sun and read and chatted on and off about what was in our respective books. After a very casual dinner we all sat on the couch and watched a little TV. We tucked the kids into bed, and Ben came down several times to report that he wasn't tired, having slept all day. At his request I went and laid in his room with him for a little while until he was ready to fall asleep. When he finally seemed to be out for the count, I went back downstairs to re-read my last post about the monthly challenges. Looking back at my day, I decided I didn't want to wait until July for my first challenge. So here it is:
Each day this month I am going to spend at least 10 minutes with each of my children alone just talking about their day or something that is on their mind.
We are so busy with keeping up our busy lifestyle that sometimes the simple things are what we end up missing. Yesterday when Hanna and I were sitting outside, and then when I was sitting in in bed with Ben when he couldn't sleep, I was able to have really nice talks with both of them. Some serious, some funny (things from the view of a 4-year-old boy tend to be fairly entertaining), but all of them important. Being a working mom I tend to get caught up in the tasks and I don't really spend the kind of time I would like to just being with my kids. Furthermore, when I am with them I am trying to maximize my time, so unless I am doing homework with Hanna I rarely spend much one-on-one time with either of them. This month that will change. I am going to make time every day to spend at least 10 minutes alone with each of them just talking...no homework, or TV....just talking. Without a doubt, as happened with Ben last night, some of the things will be funny and worth sharing, so I added a tab onto my blog titled "Quotes From My Kids" which will also serve as my own kind of diary for myself of my personal challenge this month. Kind of an online record of all of those things our kids say to us that we as moms tell our other mom friends, or our parents, or husbands...Those endearing moments of motherhood we wish we could capture and freeze in time. As is the goal of the monthly challenge, I am hoping that doing this for the rest of the month of June will create a new dimension to my landscape...a tradition with my kids that helps me relate to them in a different way and makes them feel special, and creates some memories for us to have in the future.
Standby...check out my "Quotes From My Kids", and I would love to hear some of those funny things your kids say as well :)
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