A friend of mine, Larry Hagner (the founder of the Good Dad Project and the Dad Edge Podcast) once said: “You only get 18 summers with them, why not make it epic?”
So last night when after I got out of the shower after a long day at work my youngest son asked me to snuggle and watch TV with him. My first thought was about just how many things I had to do in order to meet my self imposed production schedule for this blog and the Foster Care: An Unparalleled Journey Podcast that my wife and I host.
Then I remembered his exhortation about the finite amount of time that we have with our children. They are infants one minute and 15 going on 25 the next.
We only get a few years to spend with them and even fewer years when they want nothing more than to snuggle up under a blanket and watch some silly cartoon on the TV with their favorite person in the whole world – me. It is so easy to get distracted with the things of life that seem so very important that you end up missing the really important stuff.
I am glad to say that this night, I didn’t miss it. Yeah, I may have dozed off for a few minutes during this riveting show about kid street racers saving the world from a global domination plot (sounds amazing, I know), but they didn’t care if I caught a catnap. They were just happy to spend time together cuddled up under a blanket.
I hope you never forget the importance of spending time with your little ones. It may seem like a waste of time at the moment, but I assure you it is not.
One of the blessings of having a lot of children spaced out over a long time span is that I can look back at my older children and learn from my past.
I have one son that we have watched mature into a man and has done his time in the Army and is now married and living 2 states away.
We lost our oldest daughter to a nasty disease (HLH).
In light of our past, I now can see that it is always worth the time to stop and enjoy the snuggles!!
Leave a Reply