Settled Dust

Today I will let the dust settle in my house. The laundry in the dryer can sit for another day.

I’m going to play with my children instead. I’m going to sit on the sidewalk and eat a Popsicle, licking the sticky drippings from my arm. And I’m going to laugh the old laugh of childhood, the one that starts in your belly and shoots out before you have time to censor it. I’m going to smell the sunshine in my sons’ hair, and brush the grass from my daughters’ shoulder.

I’m taking them to the park where we can race down the slide and see who can swing the highest. Every moment today will be spent cherishing these 4 little people who make my life so insane.

Today I will not say in a minute, nor will I say not right now. Right now, and right this minute are more important moments in my childs life than the time I’m spending cleaning the counters. In a minute may never come, and I don’t want to miss out on right this second.

Today I will show my 15 year old that teaching her to dance on the back porch is more important to me than bleaching my toilets.

Children are a gift that never truly belong to us; they are simply loaned to us for a short time. Windows will always be dirty, laundry will always pile up, but children eventually go away.

When I am old and alone in my home, will I look around and admire the vacuum lines in my living room, or will I long for the days when my babies ran through the house and filled it with laughter? Will my children think of their childhoods and smile because mom always had time for a hug, knew all the silly jokes and wasn’t afraid to turn a cartwheel in the yard, or will they think back and say “Wow, my clothes always smelled so darn clean”?

Yesterday I gave birth to my oldest daughter and today she is on the cell phone with her friend. Where did the time go, and why did I waste so much of it worrying about how clean my house was and how polite my children are? Why haven’t I spent every single day basking in the joy of my children?

Some days I think “If only these kids would just leave me alone for 5 minutes”. Exasperated and exhausted I beg them to “Just go away!” One of these days, they’re finally going to do what I say, and they are going to leave me alone. They will head off to lives of their own and I will be left with an empty house, and glass doors that have no fingerprints on them. That used to sound like heaven to me, now it just sounds lonely.

Do you know it takes 2 minutes to answer a Childs question? It takes 30 seconds to get a really wet sloppy kiss from a 3 year old. In 5 minutes your child can tell you everything you never wanted to know about the stuff they found on the bottom of their shoe. 7 and a half minutes. 7 little minutes out of a 24 hour day. Can you think of a better way to spend that time? It sure is better than the 7 minutes it takes me to scrub my oven.

We wake up and expect our lives to stay the same. No one ever wakes up and thinks, I could lose my children today, I had better spend time with them. Turn on the TV, open your newspaper, and see how many mothers lose their children every day.

Take advantage of the time we do have with our children, cherish every moment with them. Kiss them good night and tell them stories of your childhood, hold their hands in the store and cuddle them in your laps for as long as they’ll still fit.

Next time they interrupt you, before you tell them to go away, keep in mind that someday they will.