The baby’s naptime commences, and the happy little spring in my step {the one that pops up as I hum merrily through my to-do list} returns. And just as I hit my stride, a familiar tug at the bottom of my shirt brings everything to a screeching halt.
Chubby feet thud across the floor. He rolls himself on to the couch, pops upright, and pats the cushion next to him. “Mama, watss?” His eyes fill with hope as he settles in, asking me in his not-quite-two-year-old way to snuggle with him and watch a DVD. All the while, my daughters are watching me.
It certainly would be nice to cross every item off of my to-do list each day. I’d love to have my tasks more than three quarters of the way completed at any given moment. But more than that, I’d like to know that I’ve done the best I could have…with my family.
You see, I’m called to love my husband and children first. Before keeping up with our home, it is my job, my calling – my gift – to love and care for them. And so while it is undoubtedly important that I make it through most of the to-do list that that gives me such satisfaction {these people do need to eat, I suppose}, if snuggling with me gives my child{ren} a sense that I am here for them, with them, to share what is important to them, than that list is banished until their preschool attention spans lapse.
And that love – love that keeps hearts above to-do lists – is what I want my girls to learn from me, and carry in to their own homes, for when they have an invitation to “watss.”
Jessica can be found reclining in the sitting room of Muthering Heights with three of her four children piled on top of her…for the moment, anyway.
