We were tremendously busy yesterday afternoon. I had a meeting after school with Mister's teacher, which I was late to. Both of the girls have been invited to birthday parties tomorrow night, and we're having a sleep over with my niece and nephew on Saturday night, so I got caught up in front of the school talking to moms and coordinating weekend plans. Then the meeting with Mister's teacher, about the class Halloween party, lasted about an hour. Then it takes about a half an hour to drive home, (a long drive to your kids' school I know, but it's totally worth it for a school you love). We didn't get home until almost 5 o'clock.
At this point I'm thinking about getting homework done and dinner made and the video chat we're supposed to have with family at 7pm, not to mention the stuff I need to do for Mister's Halloween party and the phone calls I still needed to make about the weekend birthday parties because I wasn't sure if the kids were going to have a visit with their dad that was going to interfere. I felt myself going into takin'-care-of-business mode, and I thought of this challenge. I knew that if I was going to have a pleasant evening with the kids, I was going to have to let most of it go.
So I sat with the kids and helped them with their homework. Calmly, patiently, slowly. I let the kids stop and tell me stories, I didn't shush them and tell them to hurry up and finish their work. I reminded myself that just because Slim can't do this math problem right now doesn't mean she's never going to be able to do math ever. I chuckled when she said I've got a bit of a cold- just because of the way she said it.
When Mister put his stuff away and ran off to his room to put on a mix cd and play legos, instead of chasing him down with his reading folder and a timer, I sat down and listened to Dear practice the flute. I got to hear the new notes she's learning, and then I got to hear stories about the other kids in her class and things that happened that day at school.
When I did track Mister down, he was carefully copying Sonic out of a comic book. We still didn't read, we got distracted with something else.
When Chris got home, he made dinner. He does so often and willingly, though he's a little bit slower and quite a bit messier than I am. So we ate dinner late, in front of my computer so we could video chat at the same time.
The kitchen is still a disaster area, Mister only got about 5 minutes of reading time in, and everybody went to bed a little late, but that's ok. We didn't just go through the motions today- we looked at each other and listened to each other and that's GREAT.
We also got to video chat with my sister and my mom, who each live several hours away in opposite directions. It was kind of ridiculous because their were five kids on that video chat, my own and my niece (3) and nephew (6). Mister and my nephew were convinced the purpose was entirely for them to talk to each other, so they pretty much yelled over everyone the whole time. On a side note, they call each other brother- ya know, because they love each other, so they're brothers. Adorable.
**This is Day 4 of 31 Days of Enjoying My Kid.
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