365 Lessons: #33 The Value Of Time With My Children

365 Lessons

(Critical Thinking About What The World Is Teaching Me Every Day)

#33 A Better Use Of My Time 

[Lesson Break Down] 

Spending a half an hour sitting at the kitchen counter with my son is a better use of my time than getting an extra two hours of sleep.

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This morning was an early one.  Not to mention – I’m a bit under the weather.  My three year old who usually sleeps until at least 7:30 woke up at about 5:30.  At first he played it cool with, “Daddy, my blankets aren’t on right.”  This doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s usually very easily remedied.  I walk in, I sit on the side of his bed, and I pull the blankets up under his raised arms at which time he flops them down and snuggles in.  I give him a kiss, tell him I love him, then he goes back to sleep.  Not this morning.  This morning there was no arm flop.  Instead, following the pulling up of the blankets there came a series of other very important things that had to be done:  a drink of water, the retrieval of a book and a “Taggie” blanket, the adjustment of pajama sleeves, and the locating of a flash light.  Then, my extremely self aware son informed me that he was, “all done sleeping.”

My eyes were heavy, my body ached, and I would really liked to have been able to go back to sleep.  It wasn’t going to happen so I embraced the opportunity to spend some quiet early morning time with one of my favorite people.  I said, “Well then, why don’t we go downstairs?”  He smiled and we walked to the kitchen hand in hand.  I got the oatmeal container out of the pantry and he dragged a counter stool over so that he could measure and pour the ingredients.  We got out some blueberries and talked about how many we should put in.  We looked out the window and he excitedly told me that it was snowing.  He told me that he likes to step in snow but not “yucky” snow.  We made faces at one another and laughed.  It was awesome.  About a half an hour later Momma and Little brother came down and joined us.  It was a great early morning hanging out with the boys.  No doubt about it, a half a hour spent hanging out with my son in the morning is a better use of my time than an extra coupe hours of sleep!