Enjoying the Moments

It’s one of the great cliches that children grow up too fast and that you need to enjoy each stage while you can, but being cliche doesn’t make it any easier to practise sometimes.

The trouble is that life is full of things that need to be done, things that we’d like to get done, and things people expect us to get done even if we don’t need or want to do them. Having kids makes all this doubly true.  It’s easy – in the midst of getting the kids dressed and fed, helping them with their homework, encouraging them in their hobbies, not to mention working our own jobs and pursuing our own interests – to rush through a day without really appreciating it.

Yet each day will have its list of things to be appreciated.  Among the inevitable bickering and business of living together, there will always be the moments worth remembering – the kids playing cards without fighting for once, an unexpected hug, a good chat while doing the dishes. These positive moments may not grab our attention in the same way as the more difficult ones, but that makes it all the more important that we appreciate them when they come.

One thing I’m trying to do is to verbally recognize the positive moments when the come, to tell me kids, “Thanks for the hug” or “I really enjoyed our chat”.  Not only does it positively affirm the time we’ve had together, but it helps me stop long enough to appreciate them more deeply, to experience them more fully.

They are going to grow up too fast.  There’s no avoiding it.  We may as well appreciate it as it happens.

Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged 10, 8, and 4.  He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university.  He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.