With each new child that we have, our joy (and laundry) exponentially increases.
Each child is precious. Unique. A true blessing.
But there is a dilemma I have, and I know that all of you mommas out their with multiple children share in this dilemma: one-one-one time is practically non-existent.
Remember the days when you literally spent all of your time doting on, teaching, and spending time with your very first child? Those were special times. Perfect for a new, exhausted momma who didn’t know what in the world she was doing. 🙂
But now their are several more bundles of joy. And our times together, though equally special, are by default spent in a group setting. Where one of us goes, all of us go. What one of is doing, the rest end up doing. That could be a craft project, using the bathroom, cooking…you name it, we do it together.
Now-a-days, part of me longs for the rich one-on-one time that I had for almost two years with my first child, Rudy.
I want to know Mark (kid #2) better than anyone else in the world does. I want Mae (kid #3) to be held and rocked uninterrupted.
Happily, the Lord sent a neat idea my way a few weeks ago. An idea that brings back to our family a small taste of those slow, quiet one-on-one times.
A fellow mommy blogger recently wrote about this similar struggle and shared her very creative solution to the one-on-one dilemma:
This particular momma has five young children. Each child has one night per week that they get to stay up late with Momma and Daddy. Just the three of them.
The child gets to pick anything in the whole world that they want to do. (And I added in two rules here: anything they want to do as long as it is at home and doesn’t cost money.)
The stay-up-late kid gets fifteen minutes of uninterrupted time with their parents. Fifteen minutes of being completely noticed, of having every question answered, of not waiting for their turn.
I read about this two weeks ago and fell in love with the idea.
We began our own stay-up-late nights this week. Rudy gets Monday night and Mark gets Thursday night. Mae technically still gets every night because she still gets up at 10pm to eat. 🙂
We really talked up the stay-up-late night idea. By Monday afternoon Rudy was so excited about his special time that he had come up with a hilarious list of things that he wanted us to do together.
The list included, but was not limited to:
- finding bad guys outside
- going hunting
- jumping on the trampoline with flashlights
- building a fire in the backyard
We ended up playing with legos. 🙂 It was beyond special.
And Thursday night was Mark’s night.
When we asked him what he wanted to do he said, bless him, “Play with Rudy.” The kid is the sweetest thing that has ever walked this earth.
We ended up playing with his train tracks.
Our goal is to make this a tradition that our kids can count on. It was so fun, so cute, and so needed.
My kids need to know that they are fun to be around, that they are worth getting to know on a one-on-one basis.
I hope that this idea spurs on other families to adopt some form of one-on-one time with their own children, as well. Any other ideas out there? Would love to hear!
