Law Students

Quality Time

By Anonymous

This was the view from our back porch this weekend - absolute perfection.

While JP studied on Saturday, Landon and I drove over to New Braunfels to meet my brother, sister, and grandparents for lunch at the historic (and gorgeous) Gristmill restaurant. My grandparents were delightful as always and Landon was most pleased with all the attention showered upon him. My sister was our waitress (eating there was the only way we could include her in our plans) and because we beat the lunch crowd we let Landon run around the place while she chased him. I realized on the drive home that people at the other table were probably thinking two things: (a) what a great waitress for chasing after that adorable toddler, and (2) what terrible parents for just eating and laughing and completely ignoring their child.

On the way home we stopped to run an errand and came across a fabulous playground. Landon had a big time trying to eat the wood chips and climb up the slides.

This evening when JP came home we spent a magical half hour playing with all three of our "kids" outside in the backyard. Some people (especially the ones who try their hardest to make all working moms feel like crap on online message boards) will tell you that quality time can't ever make up for a dearth in quantity of time, and I agree that they are both important; however, I can say that for me, I have never truly enjoyed my time with Landon as much as I have since I started working. When I get home from work I don't answer the phone, check my email, or turn on the TV until he's in bed. I don't make fancy dinners (or, often, any dinner- we live on a lot of cereal and frozen pizza), my floor isn't scrubbed, and Landon's baby book will probably be composed of printed out blog posts. But I am 100% with him- on the floor chasing him, trapping him in corners and watching him fall over laughing, talking to him about his dinner and his day, reading him stories as he crawls around me before bed- and I don't think I was as good about that when I was home with him all day. I felt that because I was home, I should have domestic things accomplished at the end of the day- dinner, laundry, etc., and I worry I spent too much time trying to get Landon to be entertained by something else so I could be productive. Now I'm released from that self-imposed to-do list (though, my house is neat- I can't sleep when things aren't in order, but that's more of a compulsion than an obligation), and I think the little guy derives some benefit from that.

When I think that we were probably outside for less than forty-five minutes, the number seems so small. But it was perfect and like I do so often, I tried to memorize it all in my mind:

Landon climbing up the ladder all by himself after JP showed him how

the dogs chasing after their tennis ball
(actually, Rosie chasing the ball and Tex chasing Rosie)

Landon's squeals of delight on the slide
(especially when he went down head-first on his belly).

The camera doesn't do it justice.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on September 28, 2008 (boomark / email).