rest, review and reflection

Today, I thought I’d recap the first week of 10 Days of Intentional Parenting. I was quite intentional with my titles – limiting them to one word – a word that I felt defined the day the best. I don’t know how many of you chose one word in the beginning of the year to give direction to your year {I did – it’s resolute}, but I’ve found the practice beneficial because it forces you to push through the clutter and to determine focus. What I’ve done is list the day with it’s slide along with a couple thoughts about our experience with that day.

Day One – Awake. This day helped me to see the kids and our interaction and how quickly I can be lulled into moving on auto-pilot. In fact, because of this day my topic order shifted a bit — Day 4 : Listen wasn’t going to come until week 2, however I noticed how distracted I truly am. Read this as well: the distracted mom learns to listen . Click Awake to visit Day One.

Day 2 – Heart. Again, our hearts matter as mothers. When we operate on auto-pilot and race through the day without giving attention to our hearts we become numb to life, including our children. This day? This day was crazy in our home – grumpy kids, rainy weather, lots to do, places to go. I started taking 10 minutes after lunch where I could just sit and be quiet. I strongly encourage an afternoon rest time. 🙂 And the hand collage? My kids love to look at it and have me read to them what their family members wrote about them — take time to make one today if you haven’t done it yet. Click Heart to visit Day Two.

Day 3 – See. Probably one of our favorite days. This was when I said to Grace, yes we’ll make that cake right now. I’m a classic in a minute mom and then that minute sadly never comes. Grace told me how she loves the ten minute challenge – even at eleven years old she recognized the value in intentional focused time spent with her. And, yes, we’ve played many many many more games of Zingo — Samuel has learned to love that game as well. Click See to visit Day Three.

Day 4 – Listen. For me, this day hit home hard – I began to realize how many times I didn’t look up from the computer, or kept doing what I deemed important while they talked with me. I don’t want their memories to be of me half-listening to them so I made a point to intentionally stop what I was doing and look my children in their eyes as they spoke to me.  Click Listen to visit Day Four.

Day 5 – Record. This day, this friday favorite things day,  always blesses me – I enjoy looking through the posts linking up, celebrating life.  To all of you who linked up – thank you – and if you haven’t linked you can at any time this week. My family had a quieter day – a bit of rest at the end of the week. We spent time outside {finally, a glorious spring in Minnesota} playing, laughing, and well, doing a bit of yardwork. Try to take time to record your own favorites, your blessings, and your moments of joy from the week. Click Record to visit Day Five.

And now, today, Saturday. I need a bit of rest – the series is rather intense to write and I’ve found myself up later than normal and rising earlier than expected. Those two combined have left me without much sleep. A nap might be required today!  On Monday I’m writing about the days that are hard – off days – where the milk is spilled eight times at breakfast, and the laundry pile is so high that you can’t see over it, and the kids are crabby – and how you can redeem that day and still be intentional and how it doesn’t define you as a mother.

One last thing — I’m going to keep the journal pages up until May1. So, if you haven’t downloaded the journal pages yet make sure to pop to each day and grab them. And if you’d like to have finding joy and this series delivered to your inbox click Subscribe to finding joy by Email

Rest today. And enjoy your family.