‘Sit Down Mommy, Sit Down’

This is a phrase I hear almost daily and while it warms my heart to hear my sweet ‘baby’ girl expressing her desires, it also breaks my heart to hear those words. 

Anyone who knows me, knows that my home is that, a ‘home.’ It won’t win a spot in a designer magazine nor a Molly Maid ad but it is a place where love is.  I love the time that Hannah and I share together here but there are times when she wants more of mommy’s time and as hard as it is to hear the words, ‘Sit down Mommy.  Sit down.’ I’m glad she knows to say them to express her desires.  When I’m trying to get something done, these simple words cause me to pause and question whether what I’m doing needs to happen at that exact moment or if it can wait? 

There are times when supper preparations are set aside in preference for reading a few stories together.  Sometimes the laundry is left for a day longer than I may have intended but a great tea party was held complete with imaginary tea, cookies and lively 'conversation’.  The dishes may sit in the sink until after she’s in bed but we will have built a big tower using her wooden building blocks and then shot it down with the ball popper.   

There are other times when I need to continue with what I’m doing when I hear ‘Sit down Mommy.  Sit down.’ but those words challenge me to ask myself if Hannah can help me with what I’m doing?  It may take a little longer to accomplish what I’m doing but we’re doing it together and that’s all that matters!

Supper preparation is still a work in progress but we’re getting there.  We normally get home around 5:30 so the question is always, playtime/story time or begin preparing supper and save those activities for after supper?  We have a narrow 2 1/2 hour window in the evening and I want to make the most of my time with my sweetie.  I think what I’m going to try this week is a 15 min window of time dedicated to all things Hannah when we first get home and then move into dinner preparations from there.  Thankfully we don’t mind leftovers so dinner prep won’t need to happen each night.  Also,  I may try to pull out the crockpot and see what we can have waiting for us when we get home. 

I’m slowly trying to get some little projects done around the house that I’ve been avoiding for far too long and trying to do them with a busy toddler as my ‘helper’ keeps life interesting to say the least.  Last week one evening’s goal was simply to unpack 1 suitcase and put away 1 load of laundry that was already folded and upstairs.  In those brief moments Hannah was able to completely empty a bathroom cupboard, 1/2 her book case and begin looking for what she could 'do’ next.  Yikes!!  The laundry did get put away and thanks to her start, the bathroom cupboard was also cleaned and reorganized. 

I find by the time Hannah goes to bed I’m ready for some down time and just don’t have the energy to attack bigger projects so another change in my routine is that I’m going to wake up 15mins earlier each day and slowly work away on the little projects I want to get accomplished early in the morning.  Tomorrow morning starts with beginning to work my way through the baskets of clothing in Hannah’s room and organizing it into sizes and storage bins.  Right now it’s pretty much just in a ‘too small’ basket and needs to be further refined.  It’s good to have a doable project that I can work away on each morning and then just leave it ‘as is’ when it’s time to begin getting ready for work. 

Hopefully with my project time taking place in the mornings before Hannah wakes, she won’t have as much need to remind me to, ‘Sit down Mommy.  Sit down.’

On a side note, my little smarty pants knows her mommy well!  On the Friday morning that we were leaving for Florida I was doing the last minute packing that can’t happen until well…the last minute.  Hannah was awake and playing in our room while I was packing in the office.  I suddenly heard, ‘Mommy!!  I stuck!  I stuck!’  I immediately stopped what I was doing and quickly went to see what I could do to get her ‘unstuck.’  As I walked into our room there sat Hannah.  Not stuck at all, just patiently sitting on our bed waiting for me to arrive.  As I entered the room she said, ‘Sit down Mommy.  Sit down.  Read story!’  Yup, that’s my girl!!  If she’d asked me at that particular moment to come and read a story I would have said that I needed to finish packing so she knew enough to say that she was ‘stuck’ to get me to come immediately.  I couldn’t do anything but laugh, shake my head at her logic and snuggle into bed to read a story with my sweetie. 

At the rate we’re going Hannah is going to be smarter than me by the time she’s umm….5!!