Guilty bad Mama

Major is at a really great age right now. He is throwing less tantrums and is being a much bigger boy about everything. His behavior has greatly improved over the past few weeks and I honestly feel we are making progress toward happier days in the behavioral department. I am grateful he is the kind of kid that will play alone while I get things done, but because of that I am so guilty of not spending enough time with him. I am just going to get really honest here and say that I don't know if it's that I don't like to play with him or that I just can't turn my "it has to be done now" brain off long enough to really enjoy him.  I get to spend 4 days a week home with him and on the other days we are home by 230 so I really get a lot of potential play time with him, but I always seem to have something to do, whether it be dishes, laundry, cleaning, sewing (most frequently it is sewing) or more pathetically facebook or pinterest. Every night when he goes to bed, I review the day in my head. I think about what all got done, what didn't get done, what he played with, or how much tv I allowed him to watch. I think about if he got into trouble and if so why. Today he did actually, several times, for not listening. How much of him not listening was my fault though? How many times did he ask me to play and I was too busy to stop and enjoy him. Is his acting out just a way to get my attention after I have practically ignored him? Yes.

So I want to try really, really hard to just enjoy him. If he asks me to sit in the floor and play cars or build a robot, or look at this and play this and read this then I am going to. I am really, really, really going to make the effort to enjoy my time with him. I know the days of him WANTING me to play with him are limited. He is such a gift and on days like today I feel like I have wasted my time with him. When he is in school and I am missing him, I am not going to remember that I got all the laundry done and the house clean and my personal sewing done all today. I am going to remember playing with him though. I know that he needs me to be present with him sometimes instead of saying "I'll be right there in a minute". It's not fair to him and I feel really guilty about it. I truly believe his behavior will reflect the time I spend with him as well. I know when the people I love most spend good quality time with me I feel happier and fulfilled. That's probably how he feels too.  So if I have to stay up half the night to sew or clean or whatever, then I am going to do that because spending the time with Major when he is awake and wants to play is more important than anything else in the world. Ok, now I'm going to snuggle him. :)