The girls: always in the moment! 

June 1, 2007: What do I want for my children?

The last few weeks have been rather stressful for me, with printing deadlines, preparation to ship our second set of kits, schedules, end-of-school activities all piled on top of the usual schedule. A fellow mom with a career yesterday told me half-jokingly, "I've heard of this new thing: uni-tasking. It sounds like nirvana."

Life can be so ridiculously busy sometimes. I find myself fitting yoga poses into my kitchen routine of warming up milk and making tea in the morning. I don't recommend this as a way to relax. All I did was end up noticing that the floor really needs to be swept and mopped. And why haven't I replaced those throw rugs or at least washed them recently?

Summer is almost here and the children will be out of school. We have a vacation planned...a real one where you go away to somewhere remote. Remote though is wired now and I will be lugging the laptop with strict guidelines on allowed work time. My husband has volunteered, with a bit too much glee, to help monitor my alloted time. We have a few camps planned for the children when we get back, but mostly I want to slow down and spend time with them without looking at the clock, thinking about the next three things I need to do or letting my obscene desire to multi-task everything ruin the moments.

I know. I've said this before. We all have. This summer might be different though. I had a shocking thought the other day, the kind of thought that make me think I've been completely missing something that will have horrible consequences, like raw hamburger meat hiding in the back of the fridge behind the large pickle jar for weeks. The thought was this: how will my children remember me when they are grown? What will be their favorite memories of mom?

Sure, we parents have to enforce the rules of the house and not let the little vikings (aka the chlldren) overrun us. But, maybe, just maybe, this summer I can spend more time just being with my kids, with no goal, no purpose, no agenda other than to be their mom. I'll let you know how it goes.

~Heatherly