He Knows Me Too Well

So, the other day my 5 year old set up a "store" in his room. He was "selling" all sorts of items. For most of the day he was begging me to come to his store and buy something. It was really a busy day and we had already spent time together doing his school work and reading and I had a huge list of things to do (which did not include going to a pretend store) so I probably told him several times " I'll be up in a little bit".

Finally, he called down, "Mom, I'm having a special sale of trains... and they are chocolate... and they are free!"

So I promptly went to visit his store based solely on the merit of his creativity. And the fact that he knew me so well...... sale.... chocolate.... free.......

And I bought 15 pretend chocolate trains for free. And I enjoyed them thoroughly.

He was so thrilled that I took a couple minutes out of my cleaning to visit his store that it just reminded me how easy it is to get focused on things (cleaning things, washing things, rearranging things, putting away things, etc) that I really have to make myself take time out of all the things to focus on people. Because, seriously, the things are always going to be screaming at me for attention. The laundry is never completely done, there is always another meal around the corner to fix,

there is always something to pick up or clean up and I sometimes find it difficult to take time off my "schedule" to relax and just enjoy playing with one of my kids. The whole time I am thinking about something else I need to be doing.

But, spending that time means so much to them and I have to remember that my true goals in life are people oriented and Kingdom focused and that the things are just temporal and will still be there, waiting for me, until I have finished eating my pretend chocolate trains.