Balance in the family

For the past few months my husband has been diligently working to get his program off the ground - a program he has been working on at varying degrees for about 4 years. He's just about ready to launch it and we are getting excited! Throughout most of August and this entire month so far, he has been working an average of 15 hours a day on this project which has not left him the time that he would like to spend with his family. Things will be changing soon and he is looking forward to spending more time with me and the kids - and so are we.

I prefaced with that because tonight as I was driving home from the store with the kids after they had just had yet another squabble, I was thinking, "Why are the kids fighting so much lately? Why have they been at each others throats almost constantly the past couple of months?".

Being pretty good at math (ha!), I put two and two together and decided that this imbalance in our lives is likely part of the reason there has been more contention than normal. It's not easy having my husband - their dad - working so much and not spending good quality time with us like he normally does.

I realize that there are a lot of families that struggle with this on a constant basis. Many parents have to work to take care of the necessities of life and often the kids get less attention than they want or even need.

Now this situation that my family is in right now is only temporary. It's important to keep balance and that should be resolved in the very near future. It will be a relief to me. Life gets crazy for all of us, but make sure that you are doing your best to have balance in your life and to create that for your kids. They need it. They need you. They need parents who are there for them, who will listen to them and hang out with them. We are not big television watchers. I watch some programs during the day while the kids are at school and I am folding laundry.(No Soap Operas!) But in the evening, the T.V. goes off and we read together, go on walks, play games, do puzzles or just go about our own activities in the main living area. We don't have the T.V. on to distract us from each other. Sometimes on the weekend we will watch a movie and we did watch the Olympics quite a bit. Those are togetherness times, they contribute to us feel closer as a family and help us maintain balance.

So work on that as a family. Maybe let go of some of the activities that take away from family time and see what you can do to create more stability and consistency in your life - I will, too!