Snuggle Time

Apparently four children is my tipping point~ the point at which I must run a more organized household in order to stay on top of things everyday. It can't be blamed on the baby, because she is absolutely the easiest baby in the world. Nope, it's just me.

So, I've been working hard the past few weeks trying to get the house in shape so we can implement this. I read the whole book, did the homework, and then realized that we lacked something fundamental: a place for everything so everything can be in its place. Anyone else ever have that situation?

I began to feverishly pare down, cull out, toss, donate, pass along, and otherwise discard everything for which our home has no place. Wowsers ~ What a task. I'm still working on it, but I am determined.

As a reward to myself for working so hard toward my decluttering goal, two nights ago I started putting together our personalized schedule just as the book instructed. I stuck on the pretty colored squares and had dear hubby look it over and I prayed about it and moved the squares around some more. Then I decided to let it rest a day and tweak it a bit more before we implement it. Good thing I did that, because I left out something vitally important to my daily schedule.

My almost 7-year-old son comes to me a couple of times each day and asks, "Mama, do you want to snuggle?"

Now, what would your answer be when this face asks you that question?

I make other mistakes, but that is one mistake I do not make. I never want to lament how fast the time flew by, and how I wish I'd spent more time doing fun stuff with my children. I already know better. I do stop to smell the flowers they picked, and I do stop to see the rainbow, and I do stop to rock the baby, and I do stop to sing a silly song. I do those things because I am fully aware that this wonderful, exhausting, exhilarating, challenging, adorable, and fun stage in my young children's lives is fleeting. And I know that if I don't stop, I will miss some pretty awesome stuff God sends my way. So when my oldest son asks if I want to snuggle, I'm not about to miss it.

For this child, "snuggling" is an Olympic sport. First, he must drag all, and I do mean all, of his bedding onto hubby's and my bed. It is the best place to snuggle, because it is the biggest bed in the house. And I think there is a certain joy in dragging all the bedding down the hallway.

Snuggling supplies include one large tiger, 3 pillows, one construction theme comforter, one chair pillow, assorted sheets, 2 Thomas blankets, 2 giraffes, a dog, a teddy bear, a black panther, and two frogs. At least.

Once the proper materials are on my bed, he begins the serious task of molding said bedding into a beaver lodge. This takes considerable skill, as he has no mud to plaster pillows to each other. I try to help as I can, but he is the architect.

Once the lodge is properly constructed, we both snuggle up inside, where there is a lot of whispering and giggling due to random bears, badgers, and the like that come to scratch around our beaver lodge. There is also a lot of sweaty little boy under all that bedding. I love every minute.

After hiding in the lodge listening for predators, making necessary repairs to the lodge, and stifling in the lodge, my little man is ready to run off and play something else. But he always asks, "Mama, do you want to snuggle again later?"

You bet I do.

So back to my my big, colorful schedule I go. I'm not sure what squares I'll remove~ perhaps the "Do laundry" square, or the "Take a bath" square, since I already know how to do without those things. But one way or the other, a couple of very important squares are finding a space on my schedule. Because "Snuggle Time" won't wait.