Simplify Your Family By Focusing On Your Kids

In celebration of Simplify Family Life sale, all of this week's posts will focus on simplifying family life.

I am busy.

Too busy.

Every day, I try to squeeze 28 hours worth of stuff into 24 hours.

I cheat myself. I skip workouts because I have too much to do. I stay up too late because I want to get one last thing done before I close up shop for the night.Pin

I cheat my cats. I used to sit with them while they ate and stroke their fur and rub behind their ears. I don't do that any more.

I cheat my housework. The corners in my house are dirty, my friends. There's clutter in my entryway and on my dining room table and in my bathroom.

I cheat my friends. I can't get together with them in the evenings because that's when I work.

I never, ever, cheat my kids.

I am a stay-at-home mother. I am the sole adult who cares for my children from the time they wake up until the time I hand them off to my husband and "go" to work in the evenings. It's me and me alone.

To the chagrin of my boss and my private coaching clients, I almost never check my email or Twitter or Facebook during that time.

I used to try to do it all. I sat behind the computer all day. I wrote proposals while my kids watched tv. I got stressed out because they were distracting me.

I got stressed out because they were distracting me.

And then I had an epiphany.

My kids are not a distraction.

I didn't quit my full time teaching job to watch them play from the other side of a computer.

I didn't give up almost $60,000 a year to let my kids take care of themselves.

I didn't pull them out of daycare to plop my kids in front of the television and pat their heads as I walked by.

I gave up my professional career, my income, and my private time to be a full time mother. An intentional mother. A professional, pulled together, smiling, cheerful Super Mom and that's exactly what I'm going to be!

{ahem} Never mind that little ambulance ride the other week. Stay with me here.

Being Super Mom isn't about doing everything perfectly and being everything to them and having perfect make up and infinite patience. It's about being there, fully there, mentally and emotionally present for my kids whenever I'm physically present.

It's about turning on my smartphone and my computer.

It's about letting go of email and Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and internet friends (real friends!) and Scrabble.

You can be Super Mom, too.

Close the computer. Let your text messages wait. Stay off Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook. Ignore your email. Let voice mail pick up sometimes.

Be there, with your kids, doing whatever they're doing.

Make their lunch and sit and eat with them.

Be there.

Just be there.

That's all they really want anyway.

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