Best Thing for Your Kids Part 2

I was talking about finding your joy. Once you realize your joy, then you'll need to do your children a favor. That would be to take time to nurture your marriage. If you are a responsible owner of a car, you take it in for proper maintenance. You keep it clean, get the oil changed, do the 30,000 mile check. You get the drift. Why wouldn't you do the same maintenance with your marriage?

When you have children it is too easy to get caught up in them and forget about each other. Fatigue usually takes over and then there is no time for each other. Hire a babysitter, ask the grandparents, or trade child care with friends, but get out together without those kids.  Forget the movie date. Go to dinner. A nice place that doesn't make you rush so you can talk, talk, and talk some more. The baby will be ok. The kids will survive. They will leave home one day and you will want to make sure you have invested the time in each other so that nothing has been lost in your relationship.

At least one weekend a year needs to be devoted to the two of you and NO KIDS. Call it the marriage tune up. Your children will thank you for it and get used to it. Our boys used to ask us when we were going on our next date. I explained to them that Mommy and Daddy love each other and that one day they would leave home and it would be just Mommy and Daddy alone again. It was important for them to know that we would always love each other, like each other. We were setting an example for our children.

We have been married for 35 years. Our children are 30 and 27. We have such a great time together now, it is like it was before we had children. That didn't come without work. We made time for each other every week. If an evening date didn't work, then it was a breakfast date or lunch date. NO KIDS!

We gave our kids almost all of our time. What was left we gave to each other. It was worth every minute.

Best thing for your kids!

I'm online chatting with a friend who says the joy has been sucked out of her life...makes me think about the joy in my life and where it comes from. I have to say without a doubt it is Him. Yes, God!
My best friend, my lover, my companion, my husband of 35 years brings me happiness most of the time. But, to put my joy and happiness on his shoulders is wrong. He will fail me. Just as I would fail him. Happiness and sadness are temporary emotions. The burden of trying to make others happy is too big for anyone. When we married we said for better or worse. Not ok, I'll change to make you happy. That doesn't work!
In a nutshell...work on it. Take time to find your joy in God. Take to time to be joyful together.
How? More later.

Summer is here!

What to do with those kids? Here is what you don't do...don't over-plan their summer. Play, play, play, let them play. Play with them. Play as a family. Swim lessons yes! Every camp that is out there, no! Kids are so overbooked during the school year these days, it is crazy.  Are people raising children that are stressed, rushed, and over tired? I hear all the activities that parents involve their children in, even during their preschool years and it makes me cringe. When do they get to play at home? When do they get to go in their backyard and play make believe? Why do they have to have every minute of their lives scheduled? That comes all too soon.
When our children were young we'd swim, we would read, we would just hang out. Their time was limited on their Nintendo. My favorite times were when we'd all be floating around in our pool for a few hours most every afternoon.
My point is give your kids a break. They need it, they want it. Don't ask them if they'd like a break from activity they don't know that they need it. Just spend time together playing, laughing and loving each other. In a blink of an eye, they will be adults and you will be wondering where the time went.