My passion to CONNECT

I take my "job" pretty seriously. My stay at home mom job.  I feel so blessed to be a mother and to be able to stay home with my kidos.  I try, (but don't even come close to being perfect at it), to be deliberate about my parenting.  What this means is that I parent on purpose.  I have an end result in mind and the intention to get there.  This drive makes me passionate about parenting. I find the entire process fascinating.  I find other parent's parenting choices intriguing.

One of the specifics that I find particularly challenging, but especially rewarding is connecting.

My goal is to connect each day on an intimate level with my kids.  This means listening, loving, (separate note been reading Five Love Languages for Children - love it! and learning a lot) and listening some more. Some days this is a teary heart to heart talk about a disappointment, some times it's an end of the day extra long snuggle in bed, some days it's being down at their level listening to what happened at school with their friends or a maybe it's a rub my fingers through their hair and tell them how amazing they are.

I can tell you that most days this connecting and especially the listening part comes at the most inconvenient time.  Most days someone wants to tell me what they consider to be the most important thing ever,  right as I'm rushing out the door because Costco closes in thirty minutes, or at 8:00 when I feel emotionally "fried", one child wants an extra long snuggle.  Or it's during the "witching hour" when I'm trying to make dinner, help three kids with homework, keep everyone quiet while Aubrey has her piano lesson in the other room (only five feet away from the chaos) and keep an almost two year old from dancing on the table with a marker. I know this - these are the moments that really matter.  These are the ones that test you.  Are you really "there"?  More than physically being there, are you really in the moment?

I'm learning (and believing through experience) that this connecting is what fills up our kids emotional tanks.  It's what gets them through the rough moments and grows our relationships.  I do what I can to allow time for these and occasionally to intentionally plan for these moments.  Like yesterday when I felt prompted to surprise my 2nd grader and take him out of school for lunch.  I've never done that before, but the look on his face made it well worth rearranging three little ones and you better believe I'll be back for more lunch dates.

This has been on my mind a lot lately and yesterday when I caught this video (even though I'd heard and loved the talk before), seeing the little boy's face brought tears to my eyes and made me take a moment here to share.