Interruptions

Putting our kids first is important for enjoying family life, but it doesn’t always come naturally. Parenting can seem like to be big to-do list full of interruptions. Do your kids ever interrupt you?

My kids have interrupted me trying to make this website sooo many times. What should have taken about half an hour took me a few days. This is all new to me, so it was already frustrating. Thanks to my tech savvy sons, it’s actually working now! But my little ones were much less helpful.

They are cute though. When I pause to look at them and listen to them, I remember why I became a parent.

It’s ok to make your kids your first priority.

Kids interrupt chores, conversations, school lessons, each other… Sometimes they interrupt my dinner making to ask me for a snack. Seriously, I’m already making you food!

There’s a lot of variety in the way they interrupt, too. The questions, the comments, the requests, the screams, the crashes, the crying. How do you spell “already?” What are we having for dinner? Can you invite my friends over? I don’t like spaghetti. Mom. Mom. Mom!

My parenting includes homeschooling, and I can’t even estimate the number of times that our homeschool lessons have been interrupted by the needs of the younger kids. The times when I’ve had a potty-training toddler and a nursing baby on top of homeschool have kept me juggling those 3 full time jobs till I’m dizzy. These things can make it feel hard to enjoy family life.

Sometimes their interruptions are important. 

Sometimes kids interruptions are important. When our oldest was 2 he stopped our conversation with, “Baby up high!” We followed him into the other room to find his baby sister at the top of a ten foot ladder! We were glad we put our kids first that time!

Sometimes the interruptions are obviously not important, like when they blurt out, “Can we go to the pool tomorrow?” in the middle of a school lesson. If I can keep my cool, I can use it as a teaching moment, “We don’t interrupt Mom when she’s teaching. We can talk about that after school time.”

When my big kids were little I would often get frustrated at them for interrupting my daily tasks to ask for my attention. My feeling was- Can’t you see I’m busy? But as I’d think back over each day, knowing a task was finished never felt quite as happy as remembering my child’s smile. I realized that chores will always wait for me to come back to them, but kids won’t. I promised myself that when my kids needed my attention for a few minutes, I would put my kids first, and that has helped me enjoy my family life.

So enjoy those interruptions while they last. 😉

Do you have an interruption story? Share it in the comments.

This poem is a great reminder that putting our kids first helps us enjoy family life.

Song for a Fifth Child (Babies Don’t Keep) by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh mother, come shake out your cloth!
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking!

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby, loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.)

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.

(as found on Nancy Holtzman)

For more thoughts on joy in parenting, read my post Parenting Fails and Wins, or check out my other posts on parenting.