This past week has been a crazy one. I had a lot of goals and items on my own "agenda" to get done by the weekend.
On Friday, I was maximizing my time to be able to have things ready by Saturday. I was feeling great that I had managed to dust and vacuum the whole house, organize toys and upstairs, gather items for my little musical theater program, do laundry, ironing, and make dinner. Pretty impressive!
At dinner that night, Thomas had a complete meltdown. He was in hysterics about not being able to watch TV during dinner, and throwing a very dramatic tantrum. Which of course led to time out, because he invariably does a few things that he is not supposed to do while throwing a tantrum.
As I listened to him cry during his 2 minutes of time out, I thought about our day. I had gotten so much done. Thomas had watched two whole movies, gone to preschool, and watched a few more episodes of Curious George. I thought, how much had I even seen Tommy that day? I felt great that he had done something productive and physical by going to preschool, but I had barely had any real interaction with him that whole day.
I had a realization. It was my fault he was having a complete meltdown. He did not receive the attention he needed during the day. I have heard many people talk about how having a clean house doesn't really matter, or "messy house equals happy kids" kind of thing. I understood the message, but I also kind of thought it was an excuse for a messy house.
On Friday night, I really understood. I will ALWAYS need to vacuum, and I will ALWAYS need to dust. And heaven knows there is no end to laundry. But I will not always have a bright-eyed two year old who wants to blow bubbles outside and read the same books over and over and play puppets--who needs attention from ME. Even if he does seem perfectly content to watch movies.
I'm not saying that all of our days are this distracted, or that all of our future days will be distraction-less. What I am saying is that on Friday night I had a clear vision of what my priorities should be. And I intend to make my little family members my first priority rather than my idea of "getting things done" and "having things ready".
In the end, I am probably the only one who notices the dust and crumbs in the house anyway.
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