My newly turned 4 year old daughter Alyssa has a pretty unique (I think) routine she does with my wife and I each evening before retiring. It started out as a gesture of endearment between her and her little buddies from church and has taken on a life of its own.
At first it was a hug and a kiss. Then it became a hug, kiss, and high five. Then a second high five was added. A fist bump came next. Then of course a second fist bump. Now the complete routine looks like this…
• Hug
• Kiss
• High five (us to her)
• High five (her to us)
• Fist bump (us to her)
• Fist bump (her to us)
• Up high high five (us to her)
• Down low five (She moves her hand and says, “Too slow.”)
• Up high high five (her to us)
• Down low five (We move our hand and say, “Too slow.”)
• Up high high five (us to her)
• Down low five (She lets us hit her hand and says, “Aww you got me.”)
• Up high high five (her to us)
• Down low five (We let her hit our hand and say “Aww you got me.”)
Are you still with me? Are you exhausted yet? Yeah we do this every night.
I don’t have time
One night I was busy typing up something on my laptop and Alyssa wanted to come up and sit on my lap. I told her the lie that “I didn’t have time” so I couldn’t lift her up at the moment.
An hour or two later she was going to bed and came to say goodnight. I went to do our usual ritual when she looked at me with disappointment in her little blue eyes and said, “Daddy I’m sorry I don’t have time” and went off to bed.
OUCH! Man I knew I was a sensitive dude but that hit me hard like a stiff jab to the nose.
I know kids like to “push the envelope” sometimes and see what they can get away with but I’m assuming she felt this way at least partly because of my comment earlier.
We can make time
The reality is we all have time. We “make time” for those things that are important to us.
I think if we tell others, especially our kids that we don’t have time we are not being completely honest. A more honest but probably more difficult response would be “Right now I want to do ____________.”
What are you not making time for and how can you change that?