Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Being With You

"What was your favorite part of Christmas?" I asked my kids, fully expecting to hear a rundown of their favorite presents.  They surprised me.

Cameron (age 9) looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling, pursed her lips and rubbed her chin as she considered the question.  "My favorite part of Christmas was being with you," she said.

"That was your favorite part?  Not the Nook that Granny got you, or Just Dance 3?" I asked, unsure if she had missed the point of the question (and obviously giving her no credit).

She looked at me and responded without hesitation, "Yes.  I just really liked that we got to spend a lot of time with you."

That was both the most encouraging and condemning thing that she's ever said to me.  The fact that what my kids want to do more than anything is spend time with Terri and me is just astounding.  The fact that it was the best part of her Christmas holiday was even more so.  The reality that it seemed like such a special occasion to her rather than her normal experience punched me in the gut.

As parents, we do and do and do.  We run our kids to this practice and that performance, hoping that the more extracurriculars we can involve them in the more well rounded they will become.  We work long hours to provide the best for them, to take them on vacations and keep them in nice clothes.  We do their laundry, make their dinners and pack their lunches all because we love them and want to take care of them; and the irony is that they usually don't even notice any of it.  But, why would they if all they want is to just be with us?

Know this, your kids would rather sit and watch TV with you than have you clean their room.  They would rather you jump on the trampoline with them than go to dance class.  They would rather break your back by jumping on it than have it bent under the burden of long hours at the office.  Cameron will never remember anything I did at work, but she will always remember lying on her bed listening to the stupid voice I gave her squirrel puppet.

Time is the one thing you can spend but never earn, and our kids want us to invest it in them.  Not teaching, training or correcting.  Just being.


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