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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

What do you Think Wednesday

As most of you know (and some have experienced first hand) I don't get out much. This means that I don't get a lot of talking time with other women/wives/mothers. To that end I am starting "What do you think, Wednesday". I will be bringing up topics of all varieties. Some, of which, will have formed opinions, others I will never have thought about before, and the rest will be in between. So, join me, and tell me what you think.
Caveat - I am not necessarily asking because I don't know what to do, or I want you to change my mind. I would like to know the different sides to the issues and how other Christian women handle them. I do appreciate honesty and good-hearted debate.

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I read an article here that said you should spend 10 minutes of quality time with your children a day. The article did say that this was the minimum, but still, doesn't this sound a little low to you? The articles talked about how watching your child play at the park cannot make up for actually getting down and playing WITH them (which makes sense), but how do you play with your kids? Do you make things up or play with things you already have? How often do you read with them? One of the things that I am not looking forward to when Max gets his new job (Monday) is that they will not have the evening giggle fests that we all have most nights now. Well, we will, it will just be up to me.

2 comments:

Hinman said...

I agree ten minutes a day seems quite low. I can't tell you how much I do because I don't time it but you already know how I feel about playing with the boys. I think it is the most important thing of the day but I hate housework and cooking!@! Some suggestions of how I play is I get on the floor and play cars/trains, potatoe heads, I draw with them, I do repititive talk in the mirror with Noah, etc etc. As for reading each day is different but I do a reading time every day (some days more organized then others).

Leanne said...

Well. of late, my play time with the boys has been a bit modified,since my body hurts after sitting on the floor for any length of time.

My biggest struggle is putting them off in the morning till, the laundry is started, breakfast cleaned up, coffee consumed, etc., but I have found that our days go so much better after I have set aside an hour of real play time with them. This could include any range of things, be it an art project, playing trains, blocks, cars, a game, puzzles, or anything else. This generally seems to set everyones mood off to a better start, including mine.

When Jason is home, he generally will take the boys and do a little "rough" play (something I don't do), consisting of tickling, giving zerberts, and flopping on each other.

The age that my boys are, they love to help mommy and especially daddy, which gives them more interaction with us. The day they figure out that they are really working for us will be a sad one, but until then we will appreciate their help.

As for reading times, we read stories before rest time and bed time, and then sometimes in between.

Of course, none of these things happen each day, but it is my hope that they are a part of our daily routine together.