"One More Minute..."

I love my job. I love being able to stay at home with my kids. But some days I wonder: are they getting the short end of the deal? How many times during the day do you utter the words, "One more minute. Just one more minute and then I'll look." I know I must say it to my son at least fifty times. Am I missing out on something or is he? I sometimes feel like I can't stop. I just need to finish this one email, this one blog, this one phone call. Sometimes I forget that he is two and I don't understand why he can't understand why he needs to wait. I wonder would it be better if he was in daycare everyday where is getting more attention then what I'm paying to him?

Then I remember that I stayed home for a reason; to raise my children. Deciding to work at home came second and it always should. A few minutes ago Zachary came in and asked me: "You wanna play catch with me?" It makes my heart melt. Especially because I remember on about three different occasions he asked me this same question this week and I gave him my magic answer: "Just one more minute." I feel so guilty because half the time when I tell him this I'm secretly hoping he forgets and will get involved with something else before asking me to play again. This doesn't make me feel like a very good mommy at all.

So I decided on a new strategy that works with my son: the timer. If he comes in and asks me to play and I'm busy, I now set the timer for five minutes and I have five minutes and that's ALL to finish what I'm working on. When he hears the timer go off he knows he has my undivided attention for the next 15 minutes. (I of course set the timer for those 15 minutes also!) I also take at least two small breaks a day just to pull him into my lap, take a deep breath to take him all in (Two year olds smell so yummmy! I do the same with my two month old also) and then give him a big hug and squeeze. They are only this little (and smell this good) for a short time, let's make sure that we as mommy's and the children that we put before work don't miss out on anything together!