Saturday, May 26, 2007

Who has their heart?

Something in our parenting needs to change, now that Lauren is turning 13! To be honest I am not ready to change. This change is going to require me to not be so selfish with my time. Here is the deal. During the summer, the camp turns into the equivalent of an amusement park-water park-teen hang out! It is getting increasingly harder each year to keep our children at home in the summer. Lauren is old enough now to work in the kitchen and help make the meals. She is the same size as most of the team members, so some of them accept her as one of them. She feels very grown up outside our house. She would move into the girls cabin, if we allowed it. She wants to be one of them SO badly. Here is where we need to change. We need to make our house more exciting so that she will WANT to stay home. (I am not even sure this is possible, but I have to try.) In our house all the children are treated equal at bed time, they all go to bed at the same time! Jeff and I cherish those two or three hours to ourselves, but we are going to have to treat Lauren differently now. She needs to feel grown up in her own house. We have decided to let her stay up later at night. This is going to be a huge step for me! I can no longer be selfish with my time! She has to come first, before myself. I also need to make times of fun at home during the day for all the children. The problem with this whole idea is...I am not fun! Jeff is by far the fun one at our house. He can make us all so happy by just coming home for a few minutes. In the summers we do not see Jeff much at all, so our house is not normally the picture of fun. After all this rambling, I hope that you don't think that I am against my children having friends outside of our house! That is not it at all. I just want to make sure that my children feel more loved and cherished in the house than they do outside of the house!!!

1 comment:

Pegsy said...

Judith, I totally understand what you're saying! I'm not fun either! I'm way too practical for me own good, and my children suffer everyday because of that! The fun time of the day starts when Joshua comes home. My daughter, Sara, is such a social butterfly and would spend every day at a different friends house if she had that option. She actually begs us to get a babysitter sometimes because she wants Joshua and I to leave! She just seems happier with other people. She and I are not alike AT ALL, so we clash A LOT and I hate that. Sometimes I just don't know how to bridge the gap. Anyway, now I'm rambling too! Thanks for being real and sharing your heart. That's why I love your blog!

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