Playing with my kids.....

I often end a day thinking, why did I answer in that tone? why did I react this certain way? what was I thinking when I said that? was that really a big deal? ect. and after telling Carson and Emilia goodnight, saying our prayers and telling them how much I love them feeling a yuck feeling that I need to apologize to them for my actions at some point that day. I often find myself wondering, "when they are grown, what will they remember most about the mom and wife that I am to them and to Vince now?" I dust my furniture and see pictures of them while they were still babies and even still at the hospital. I see more of them when they were just one and then just two and now 6 and 4, almost 7 and 5, and I wonder, "where in the world has the time gone?" I know that it will be over all to quickly and then I ask myself, "what will I remember about these days I'm living now?" I so want to be a mom who taught them what was important in life, who spoke gently but got my point across when I needed to, who disciplined in a way that they learn from their mistakes and hopefully don't make the same ones again. I want them to want to come home to visit, to call me when they need help or just need to talk, to have a smile on their faces when they talk about their childhood. With all this to say, my days are never slow paced, there are always 100 gazillion thoughts going through my head of what I need to do next, laundry, iron, cook, clean, get myself ready, lay pj's out for that night, get clothes out for the next day, clean out a closet, go to the grocery store, dr's visits, etc. And so often, I don't take time for just them. Last week, I didn't plan this, it just happened. It was a beautiful day and we were outside, and they say, "hey, mama, will you play hide and seek with us?" and I said sure. Oh my, I haven't played hide and seek, since I was a kid!!!! But you know what??? I had a blast. It was probably more fun that day than when I was a kid, and then we threw the Frisbee, and we threw the baseball and we played kick ball and you know what? I felt SOOOO good inside, b/c I had taken some time out with my kids to be a kid to them and let them know that what they want to play and what they would like to spend time doing with me was important to me. Today, we sat chris-cross-applesauce in the driveway, in the sun, we talked about all the birds, and wondered if they were like the ones in Cinderella and snow white, we ate lunch while we watched Beatles crawl and talked about how fast they got from one place to the next, we talked about how our cats just lay around and about why it's so neat to find a four leaf clover. Then we played tag and hide and seek again and even threw some baseballs. And you know what? I felt soooooo good inside. If you are completely stressed out about something or you just don't feel like an adequate mama b/c you have so many other things that have to be done, just take about an hour to PLAY with your kids, it's amazing what it will do for everybody!!!!!!