My friend Kacy wrote a post about "mommy blogging" the other day, including links to some of her favorite posts on the subject of parenting. I read them and loved them and felt inspired. After I finished reading, I felt guilty for sitting there so long at my computer instead of unpacking my suitcases from my trip to Boston last week, or putting away laundry, or cleaning the kitchen. I sort of feared that I had wasted my time when I should have been doing other things. But then, the words from those posts stuck with me throughout my day, and when I went to pick up my kids from school, they were still there, floating around in my head.
I'm not going to tell you all the things those posts said, because that's not really my point, but it sufficeth to say, they made me be mindful of parenting in general, and my personal parenting in particular. So then, that night, after I returned home from a visit with a church friend and my ten year old son came to me and said, "Mom, I really feel like we haven't had a chance to just talk in a while," instead of sending him to bed because I wanted to watch my TV shows, which is what I am typically wont to do, I invited him to come sit with me on the couch. He brought a blanket and we sat together under it and I put my arm around him and combed my fingers through his hair and listened as he talked. And talked. It was after his bedtime, I was tired, but at that moment, I knew that I was a very lucky woman that had a ten year old boy who wanted nothing more than a personal conversation with his mom, and I was not going to miss that opportunity. For in that brief, simple moment, I could honestly sum up my parenting efforts with one word: winning.
And that's a good feeling.
Photograph by Mark Abernathy
