Connecting

Connect. What does it mean to really connect with someone? I’ve been thinking about this a lot during the last few weeks.

Over the summer I thought the best way to connect with my kids was to have lots of time together. Time where we could just be together. There were several weeks in the summer where they had no camp.

Well, not only did I get behind with work, but my 6 and 7-year-old boys were tearing the house apart. They needed to run around and be outside and have a great summer.

The lesson I learned there was that quality time is just that, quality time. We can have quality time during the hours after camp has ended, the camp that was reasonably priced and that they loved. It doesn’t have to be all day long, for a week, just the three of us.

You’d think I’d learn, but not so. When school started I was determined to be more involved in their school because I thought that’s what a good mom should do.

So I volunteered to be room mom. But I’m also on a couple of school committees. And I’m team mom for soccer. As a result, I’ve been trying to keep my head above water. One day I was talking to my younger son’s kindergarten teacher just as school ended. I looked around and I couldn’t find my kindergartner. I went to my older son’s class and the younger one wasn’t there. I walked back to the kindergarten class, inside the class, in the back yard. I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find him.

Finally, he found me. He’d walked to the front of the school, hung out a while and came back. The scariest part is that I couldn’t remember seeing him come out of class. I was so focused on talking to his teacher or talking to the other parents that I lost sight of him literally and also why I was volunteering in the first place.

Since that day, I’ve tried to focus on just my kids when school is out and try to be genuinely connected with them instead of doing what I think should be doing to be a good mom.

This post was inspired by a bi-weekly blog prompt called #HalbaTalk through Latina Bloggers Connect. 

7 Replies to “Connecting”

  1. I agree! It's hard being a mom, there are no instructions and there are no clear cut answers. You do what you can and hope that it works. I think the fact that you're worrying about it is enough to know that you ARE making connections. You are present. There are days when you'll have more time and some days when you won't have time at all. I don't think our kids keep count. We do that.

  2. So scary. There's so much pressure on moms to do so much. And you hit the nail on the head. It's not about more time with our kids but making the time we do have count.

  3. Agree with everyone else, we get caught up in how much we give but sometimes it's about what kind of attention we give.

  4. Oh, I was exhausted just by reading this! You are right, it´s not about the million things we do, it´s about the few things we can do right. I need to tell myself that all the time…easier said than done.

    I´m so glad you wrote this….it´s an important message for all moms!

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