Stay-At-Home Teacher: Down Time

I'm a busy person. I thrive on being busy. Whether it was in high school, being a straight A student during school hours, to #1 singles players on the tennis team in the afternoon, to working 5 hours at our local pizza parlor in the evening, only to return home and do my homework...and then do it all again tomorrow. I know, it sounds bad...to defend my parents, they never pushed me to do this. It was all me...I really loved being busy. It made me feel like I was contributing...not sure to what, but it made me feel good.

As a young adult and professional, I was the same way. Very, very busy...especially as a teacher, although I really don't know any teacher who isn't busy. So, it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I am really busy as a SAHM. I know, my kids are so young, it's not like we actually have a ton of obligatory "things" we have to be doing...but you know what, we don't really have a lot of down time. If we're not at school or gymnastics (Nicholas' only organized activity), we are at the park, or having a play date with a friend, or running errands, or....

You see, I like being busy. It makes the oh-so-monotonous days of being home with young kids go a bit faster. The crazy juxtaposition of it all is that Jeff is not a busy person at all. He's perfectly happy to stay home on the weekend, read the paper, build Legos with Nicholas, color a picture with Lexi. I sometimes marvel at how he doesn't feel the need to be somewhere or doing something.

One of my goals for this year was to slow down a bit (don't laugh Mom, I'm a work in progress!). I'm trying to take in the more mundane (at least on the surface) moments with the kids because (as I'm told) it goes quickly and they won't want to spend time with me forever.

Which brings me to this afternoon. Usually I'm searching my brain at nap time as to what we can do as soon as Lexi wakes up to make the afternoon hours go by more quickly. Today though, I really wasn't that motivated to do something big. So, I packed the kids up and headed down by the water. We stopped at the local candy store and I got each kid a big pop treat. We then leisurely strolled down to the water and enjoyed our Popsicle while watching the sailboats and seagulls. We then spent the next hour meandering down by the pier, stopping literally every 5 feet to explore something...the high tide through the bars on the waterfront, the pebbles lining the sidewalk to the pier, the many fisherman casting their lines. I let the kids lead the way and did not rush them...I fought the urge to pull out my iPhone to check the time (although I did pull it out to take a few photos). They ran, they jumped, they had a blast. And you know what, so did I. We were busy doing nothing, and I loved it! And I loved that it was just me and my two babies...everything else was tuned out.

When we came home we played in Nicholas' room for full hour. I didn't worry about the laundry that needed to go in or the vacuuming that needed to be done, or any other household chore that I "should" be doing at the moment. I just prolonged that do nothing feeling and enjoyed playing with my kids. They needed it...I needed it. It was a good feeling.

I'm going to work on not being so busy being busy...although I'm sure you'll still see our fair share of happenings. After all, old habits die hard!