I always told my mom that I didn’t want kids. I wonder if it was some sort of retaliation from her slinging the phrase ..”when you have kids of your own…” followed by how I would understand. Understand the horrible wrong she was doing me? Yea, right. You know, keeping me from hurting myself gravely, hanging out with a seedy crowd or doing some other activity that was unbecoming of her daughter.

But I was wrong AND I showed her, because I got pregnant at 17! Ok, joking, I did get pregnant but definitely not on purpose and not to spite my mother. Love you Mom! But I must have snuck under her radar because I was surely getting in trouble if I could pregnant.

Well that changed that. Now I was a mom and I loved it. It was horribly hard. My mom bailed me out more than once, more than a dozen times. And I struggled SO MUCH. But I loved and still love being his mom. And now, I love being all of their mom. Because now I have a grand total of 5! Even after the first though, I thought for sure that I wouldn’t have any more. But I am so glad I did. Well I am glad WE did. You know, me and my hubs.

It is the greatest, bittersweet, rewarding and frustrating journey that I think I will ever be on. But such is life right?

And onward to something you can actually do with this post!

What can you do to cherish the time with the little people you have more? Here are some tried and true ideas.

Play with them.

Ooh so simple yet so hard. Do I want to pretend my dollie is the ice queen waiting to be rescued by some dude, again? Or try to do a cartwheel at my age and current fitness level? Not especially. But do I want to look back and think about doing a somersault instead of the cartwheel, executive decision based on my fit test, and seeing their faces light up like it was Christmas?! Hell yes I want that. I want them to remember that when they asked me to play, I didn’t always have something else to do. When they asked me to play I want them to remember me playing.

Write things down.

When they say that funny thing and you don’t want to forget, write it down. Put a note in your phone. Have a notebook. Something. Just save it so you can read it later. Make sure you put context to it. It may not be easy to understand without it. Then it is just the same as forgotten anyway.

Send them emails.

I have currently made all of my children emails. I write them emails sporadically. I would love to be more regular but honestly the stress that induces to think about, I don’t even want to endure. Plus I am busy playing with them and writing down every cute thing they do, remember? Actually sometimes what I write to them are the things I want to remember. I also want them to know what it felt like to me. Someday I will give them the password and they can read all of them.

There are 3 easy (sort-of) things to do to be more present with your kids. Enjoy the time you have a little more with them and hopefully let them remember you.

How do you stay present with your kids?