Leftovers

This isn't a typical post. This is a realization I had a few days ago. I recently stumbled across a blog that I haven't been able to get out of my head since. Some of you may have heard about this family on the news. They live in Utah. The mother put her 2 young boys in the tub in her bathroom. I don't know exactly how old the boys are, but I know the older boy is around 3 and the younger boy is around 1.5. She turned off the water and then went to get clothes for them (or something) in their bedroom. By the time she came back, the youngest had drowned. Miraculously, they revived him, and he defied the odds and is now perfectly fine and at home. Ever since I read that initial story, I have frequently blog stalked this family because I can't stop thinking about them.

One of her recent posts was very profound. She talked about how she went into her kitchen to get some food, opened the fridge and realized she really hated leftovers and didn't want to eat them. Then her thought process changed. She thought about that and realized that all she gives her family are leftovers. And not in just the traditional sense of the word, either. She gave examples about how she's exhausted and running on fumes and will give her son a quick back rub at bedtime and get out of there as fast as she can to attend to "more important" matters. Or how she's "too busy" doing something and can't pause to give her son her full attention while he tells her about the goal he scored at soccer practice, just giving him an "mhmm" at the appropriate times without really hearing him. Things like that. She said her family, the most important people in this world to her, deserve better than just her leftovers.

I could have written that post. I do that all the time. I am the queen of multi-tasking and do it often. I've got 3 kids, I homeschool, I've got a house to run, and I recently went back to school myself. I'm busy. I don't have time to "waste." That's how I found myself feeling, at least. I just didn't realize I felt that way and that I was treating my family that way. But now I realize it.

Thank goodness for that blog and for that post in particular. Time spent with my family, really spent with them and not half-spent while I'm doing something else at the same time, will always be the most important thing. It will never be a waste of time. I will never look back on those moments and wish I'd done something else instead. I will, however, look back on those moments where I wasn't giving my loved one(s) my full attention and wish I'd done something else instead. I'll look back on those moments and wish I'd just stopped what I was doing, just for a minute, because whatever I was doing isn't nearly as important as my family. Whatever I was doing will still be there when I'm done doing what really matters.