Sand in My Underwear

Today on Simple Mom she wrote about thinking of your home as a business. She has good insight about SAHMs. I left her a comment telling her that the hardest part of my day is the interruptions that 4 little ones can cause in a day and therefore I feel as if I accomplish nothing. Her reply really put a different perspective on my definition of interruptions:

A few years ago, a mentor of mine told me something that rings true for me every day - that those interruptions we have every 5 minutes as SAHMs aren’t really interruptions, they ARE our day. I may have an agenda to pay bills, clean out the fridge, go to the post office, etc., but my primary job really is to be an influence on my children. It’s worth the time to discipline for those little things, because that’s my main job. And it’s worth it to stop what I’m doing and play with blocks.

Wow! The whole reason I'm staying home is to be with the kids and I do get irritated with them for interrupted the housework -- that is backwards thinking! Lately I had really been putting more of an effort to spend small amounts of time with them throughout the day but today I did it even more. I even did a small scale of Simple Mom's Daily Docket. I wrote down my 3 MIT (most important things) I wanted to do today, what we were having for dinner, and 10 things I'd like to accomplish. In my list of things to do, activities with the kids were included like painting wrapping paper for father's days gifts and going to the library. Now I didn't get everything done but 75% of my list was crossed off and I feel like I did a lot more with the kids. We walked the long way to the post office, painted outside, played in the yard, walked to the library and park, read books, and I played in the sandbox with them. I'm tired as usual today but I feel more of a connection to the kids. I didn't get their dresser cleaned off today nor did I get the presents wrapped but I got sand in my underwear! After all, the presents and the dresser will be there tomorrow or the next day but my kids will only be 3-1/2 years old and 6 months old for a short, short time . . . and I hope to have more sandy underwear days!