One thing you should know about me is that I am a mother of four boys. Life at my house is often loud, messy and smelly. That’s just the way it is with boys.

It is hard sometimes to stay sane in this environment. I would be lying if I didn’t say that most days I would like a little peace and quiet. However, that is just something that I’ve found is almost always unobtainable.

Most of the time it looks like a tornado swept through their rooms and left dirty socks and underwear strewn about along with toys and old homework. When I see this I just want to pour gas on it, light a match and walk away... Then smile and laugh wildly knowing that I will never have to clean again.

Sadly, that seems more like a scene from a movie, than from my real life. Many times I’ve found myself doing the dishes, the laundry or cleaning and thinking to myself. I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’ll just have to do it again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

It is at about that same time I will hear my kids laughing and playing, and remember what it was like to be a kid. It is then that I realize I’m missing out on having fun with my kids, just so my dishes are clean. What is that? Why are adults so stupid? I think being so busy makes us so stupid.

Isn’t the reason we have kids so that we can enjoy them? I think we, as parents, all need to learn to put down the vacuum, dishes and laundry and just walk away... no run away...  to our kids and have fun them while we have them. Have a tickle fight, read a book, play Just Dance 3, build a fort or bake cupcakes. It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it with them.

 

Joy Larson was raised in Montana, is a graduate of The University of Montana, mother of four, animal lover and writer.

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