Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

"Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" --My Mom used to say this to me LONG before it became a Book about it all being small stuff...and to some extent it is true.

If you have an income, your health and your family is safe---everything else should be secondary.

However, so many of us get so caught up in that first one that everything else falls to second, third, fourth...and so on down the line.

I recently started following : http://www.handsfreemama.com/

She is awesome to read.

She reposted to her FB account a blog about summer and contracts and "being in the moment" along with a list compiled BY other kids of things they wanted from their parents.

I read it this morning.

I had a good cry.

You see those memes float around FB "Behind every great kid is a Mom pretty sure she's screwing it up"

That is me.

A lot.

We make commitments in the best interest of our kids.  Soccer, baseball, dance, play dates assuming it is always what is best for them. Engagement, activities, social experiences.

Sometimes and MOST of the time--what is best for them is US; their family. Their parents dialed into them. Listening to them.  Yes, even when they are repeating a story for the 7th time.  Even when it's Fish Hooks cartoons you have seen 10,000 times if you ask "Can we watch something together?"

One thing on this list from kids was:

"At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend"

I get to admit a huge failure on my part.  Well partially on me.  We have a very small house. A house I love and adore but it is a very small T-shaped galley kitchen.  Their is not enough room for even a small breakfast nook type table.  We recently put a desk there to make it an area we all use but there is no place to sit down and eat dinner as a family.  For the summer when it's nice out we can and DO sit out on our patio furniture and eat around the table and talk.  The rest of the year NOT SO MUCH.

I feel like I should have come up with some awesome idea to rectify this situation.  Some high tech moving wall where furniture appears from the floor like in the Jetsons cartoons.  Some crazy crafty idea from Pinterest (although I feel incredibly intimidated by that site with all my shortcomings).

I realize I have nothing. In the 7 years we've lived in this house we rarely eat dinner as a family around a table.  I suppose we've all gotten used to it but as a Mom I struggle with this.  I slave fairly hard in the kitchen to make awesome dinners and well--- I feel like I should get to look in the face of the people enjoying it while they are eating it.

This has been bothering me for some time.

This is something I need to try and figure out a way to fix.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite TV shows where the family met for dinner once a week, every week-no matter what.  Perhaps that is something we could consider.  Something where we take turns selecting what's for dinner, making the dinner...just once a week.

But then the perfectionist in my head says "Is once a week enough?"  I mean we're not some big family of 7.  Most of the time it's just the 3 of us.  With Kyle away at school that's the way it is.  Is once a week for a sit down dinner enough?  No tv, no phones, nothing to distract us if we went out to eat. Just us and dinner.  Quality time.

Then the planner in me says "with hubby's work schedule can we stick with it"  the worst feeling in the world is giving up on something before you really get to it.  I feel worse trying and failing than if I just sat on the sidelines in denial.    Can we stick with it? 

The flip side of my planner type A says 'Well we can move the big chair in the living room back, bring in the big card table and YES..have a family meal"  This production could happen once a week, why not?

Then I go back to "Can we stick with it?"

Then I re-read the blog, look at a picture of my daughter on my desk at work--then a picture of my son both of them staring down birthdays of age 9 and age 22 respectively and I think..."We HAVE to try" 

Time went so fast with my son and it's time I'll never get back.

I need to make not just summer "low key" and family oriented but I need to make more memories during the hustle and bustle of the school year or I'm going to be sitting here 10 years from realizing " I blew it".

My kids...whatever their ages..deserve more time.