You Are Doing Something...

I am always with my children. ALWAYS. Sometimes it's awesome, and other times it's.... not so awesome. My "breaks" consist of running to the store alone. Sometimes, the second Jordan walks in the door, I tell him I quickly say, "We are out of milk!", slip on my flip flops and RUN to my car. So I think I have the "twice as much time" part down.

But then, I stopped to think about it. Yes, I am physically with my children all.the.damn.time. But - am I mentally with them? Do they have my attention? I was kind of disappointed to realize that a lot of the time, I am focused on "doing" something else. We all know the feeling. You need to fold the laundry that is piled on the chair, check your email, pay bills online, sweep up the Goldfish crumbs. You have things to DO! You can't simply sit and build a Lincoln Log house.

In my own effort to stop being overwhelmed by my three monsters kids, I haven't been focusing on the house so much. I sweep once a day, and sometimes that is not until after dinner when Jordan is home to occupy the little ones. My goal is to do one load of laundry a day (though I really MUST wash those diapers today!), and load and run the dishwasher. Other than that, I just want to focus on the kids.

The urge to "do something" is a hard one to break. As I sat on the floor today, Emmy on my shoulder and Mason in my lap, my thought instantly turned to the fact that I should be "doing something" with my time. But you know what? I AM doing something!

I am cuddling my baby. She is five weeks old, and all she has ever known is her mama. Snuggling and holding her close is important to both of us. AND -  look at me go - I was multitasking! Mason was "cooking" me food and together we were "eating" it. I was playing a fun game with my sweet boy. The kids had my complete attention. And that is the way I want it.

As they say, the days are long but the years are short. Before I know it, my baby won't be a baby. I won't feel the weight of her little body against my chest, or smell her sweet milk breath. Soon enough, my toddler won't want to cook his mommy pretend food and run off excitedly yelling "More!" before bringing me a delicious plastic strawberry. And some day, my hysterical preschooler will not spend 40 minutes swinging with me and telling me everything he knows about pink spotted tree-climbing butterflies.

Time is going by too fast. I had better go and do something.