My sister is one of the best moms I know and she taught me the most important thing about raising children - though I don’t know if I can actually put it into words. It’s more of a lesson absorbed from example and understood in a way to change my life. Basically, she makes time for her kids. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yes, she has a very busy life, works full-time, and stays healthy with regular work-outs and no, she doesn’t have a nanny, a driver, a chauffeur or a personal shopper or assistant. But it’s not the “planned” or “quality vs quantity” time type of lesson. This lesson was all about choice. She chooses to do things with her kids when she really has other things on her plate that “must” get done. But she’s learned to separate the urgent from the important. The urgent will always be there, or immediately be replaced by another urgent. The important will grow up when we’re not looking, so quickly we’d swear the world was on fast forward and move away, leaving us with only memories to hold and not little hands.
See, that’s what she’s good at. Making memories. Her kids won’t remember the December she got all her Christmas shopping done early and the presents wrapped beautifully. They will remember the day they stayed home from school after it had snowed all night, and although she had planned on crossing a dozen more item of her holiday to do list, she took them sledding because, “Please mom? It’s perfect for it!” Made hot chocolate. Made a fire. Played a game. The only snow day that year. The only time it snowed enough to go sledding.
This was SO not me. I was an “urgent” person all the way. When the choice is there, urgent or important, sometimes it’s hard to see the important because the urgent screams and jumps up and down and just makes a god-awful fuss and often comes with a busybody ready to make you feel guilty if you haven’t done what you oh-my-god-just-have-to-do. Check email! Clean the car! Mop the kitchen! And I might still be rushing around trying to put out those urgent fires 24/7 if it were not for my sister’s example.
I still slip into that sometimes. But now I work at balancing my life better. When my kids look back on their childhood, I want their memories to be more than, “Oh yeah, that was the time mom got all her papers filed and got the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away all in the same day.” Ha! Like they’d even remember that. Like I’D ever remember that.
I think one of the best blessings of life is having the opportunity to fill it will memories. This “child” lesson really did change my life. Not just with time and my children, but with every area. When there’s a choice of making a memory or crossing another thing off the list, I’m going to jump at the memory. Because my list is always there and always long. But an opportunity for a memory? It melts away as fast as a snowflake caught on your tongue.
