Spending time with my children

Last night was a wonderful evening!! We didn't go to any fancy restraunt or a movie, we didn't even order dinner in. Want to know what made it so wonderful? I spent it with my children. Now I don't mean I was just home with them, I mean we really spent some time together. Do you know the difference? God has been working in my heart about this for awhile and I have discussed it with a dear friend on several occasions. I will share with you what happened.

After dinner we were sitting in the living room and the children had little chalkboards and were asking me to give them words to spell. A show came on that I didn't want to watch but there weren't any shows on that were good for the kids to watch, so I headed to my bedroom. I didn't tell anyone, I just went to my room and sat on my floor in front of the heater with a couple of books to read. I knew it wouldn't be long before they came looking for me (it never is) and sure enough, here came my oldest ds. He sat next to me and asked me for more words to spell, then next was my second born ds. So, we were sitting in the floor and I had put down my books and reached for an encyclopedia (on the shelf next to me) to read from and pick words from. I started with outdoor wildlife which is what my oldest ds wants to study in school right now. That led me to mammals and I stayed there for awhile. I read the entry about mammals, pausing when I came to a word for them (my two oldest) to spell. In the meantime, my youngest ds and my dd came into the bedroom with us. Dd was drawing flowers and youngest ds was writing words of his own on his chalkboard. After a few words, ds8 went to his room for the dictionary and came back and was looking up mammals. He said it didn't tell him enough about them, so I handed over the encyclopedia. He read that for awhile and ds10 kept spelling words. Ds6 ended up getting the portable dvd player and putting it on my bed with an old VBS cd, so he danced and sang around to VBS songs the rest of the night. Ds8 got a book about Daniel Boone to read to me, "Daniel Boone: Wilderness Scout". He read the first chapter to me, then I read a book dd had brought in to me, "Cat in the Hat" while allowing her to read "cat" and "hat" each time I got to those words at the request of ds8. Next was ds10's turn to read (by choice) and he chose to read Proverbs 1. By then it was bedtime and I tucked them all in their own beds and said prayers. It was just a wonderful, quiet evening.

I challenge you to really spend time with your children, not just be in the same place but really being with them.

Blessings,
Rashel