Today is my daughter’s birthday. I asked her what she wanted. Perhaps she wanted a pony. Maybe she wanted a doll house or roller skates.
“Mama, please don’t write today,” she said. “Please be with me today.”
She wanted me.
How easy it is for me to forget what is important. I wrote, What is really important in life? last week. I wrote it the day I played Littlest Pet Shop for 3 hours and 14 minutes. I usually write when I wake up at 5:00 a.m. Today I slept in until 6:00 a.m., and she woke up right after me. I shut my computer and went back upstairs with her.
We read the last chapter in “Understood Betsy” by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I organized her Pet Shop animals into groups. One group has magnets on their feet and the other animals didn’t. I picked up her clothes and helped clean her room. Lunch at Subway and then a movie, Monsters University. Then home to make a cake and eat it. A trip to the Thrift Store and then it was time for her to go to bed.
We did buy her a present. The present was easy. Drive to a store, get her what she asked for. Pay for it. Wrap it. Give it to her.
Spending time is costly. You have to deny what you want to do. You have to think about the needs of the other person and do what they want.
The best gift, and investment, you can give your child is your time.
– Kevin Heath
Now is it 10:47 p.m. She is asleep in her bed. I gave her my time today. It was time well spent.
