You Be Chillin'!

I was making an evening run to Target last night to re-stock our fruit and bread supply.  On the way there, I was able to hear the first five-ish minutes of Focus on the Family.  I guess that's all God needed for me to hear because today I have been working on something new.  At the beginning of his message, Dr. Dobson talked about how families are so busy and make excuses for not making time for family time.  He read a short essay written by a 9 year old girl.  She wrote about grandparents.  One of the things she wrote, that stuck out at me, was "they should never say to hurry."  Complete paraphrase, but that was the gist.  And while the 9 year old was talking about grandparents, where do you think she got the opinion that they should never tell her to hurry?  Her bizzee, bizzeee parents?????????  ;-)

We do make time for family time here in our family.  We don't sign the kids up for organized sports or other organizations simply because we don't want to be split-up and on-the-go all week.  But there's still a lot that goes on here at home, and I am one of those dad-blamed task-oriented people.  If there's something in front of me to be done, I WANT to do it.  I almost can't resist the draw of the chore. I've had to get over that, but still try to squeeze in as much as possible during the day as I can.  So much so, that on any given day, at various times, I can be found saying "Hurry!" to my kids.  To make this little personal revelation even more painful is the memory of my kid's impatience in certain situations and my response.  Thoughtful comments such as, "Hold your horses," "What, you got a hot date or something?" "What's your problem???" "Simmer down, now!" and my personal favorite, proving that I am indeed an Material 80's Girl, "Take a Chill Pill!"

So last night I decided to quit trying to hurry my kids along and to be a little more leisurely.  I'm sure my kids were too polite to say anything about my red face and the bulging veins in my neck today as I worked hard at holding myself back from saying that one, little, itty-bitty word.  God bless them.  But I'm not going to give up!  I'm going to get this under my belt - and quickly, too!