My Parents Are Still Teaching Me!

There are a lot of times that even though I’ve asked him not to rock my son to sleep, my dad still does it when we’re not there.  I always got really annoyed because my son is so good about going to sleep by himself, so I was always scared that if he got in the habit of being rocked, then he would expect it every night.

There were also other things that my dad would do and tell me about…taking my son on walks in the woods and letting him touch all of the leaves on the trees.  I thought this was nice, but in my head I thought “there’s no way I have the time to do these things.”

Then I sat back and realized something…my dad was enjoying and relishing in all the things he didn’t do with us because there wasn’t enough time.  Through him, I got to see how important it is to take time to rock my son at night (if that is something I enjoy doing, which it is).  My dad worked really hard when my sisters and I were little.  He tells me often how much he regrets not being there for so much of our childhood.  That’s hard because I look at where he is now, and I’m not sure I would have wanted him to change anything.  When we were little he decided he no longer wanted to practice accounting, he wanted to teach it…to college kids.  So he and my mom sold their firm and he went to get his PhD.  So he spent a ton of time in school while we were growing up.  But because he did that, he is now one of the best professors and is able to take so much time off to come up and visit his grandkids.  So you see how his hard work has let him have lots of time off now?  That’s why I’m not sure I would have ever wanted it to be different.

Watch your parents around your kids…you might see through their eyes what really is important in life.  I doubt it will be a clean and perfectly organized house or having tons of friends that do stuff with all the time.  I bet it’s taking the time to just sit and hold your kids, or rock them, or cook with them, or just follow them around a live a day in their world.

I don’t want to end up like my dad regretting that I didn’t get to rock my kids enough, or take the time to show them how to do things, or read enough books to them.

 Thank you dad for reminding me that my kids are only little for such a short time and that I need to treasure every second of it