Choosing Peek-A-Boo Over The To-Do List

I’ve been looking forward to writing this article for a couple of months now. I had my topic, my outline, and everything ready to go.

I had a time carved out specifically to write this article. It was planned all afternoon that after dinner I would pull up the laptop and work on meeting this deadline. The time was set, the notes were made, the article was ready to be written.

But as I sat down to write, a few things changed. My baby crawled up in my lap, moving the laptop over. He was fussy and clingy. My husband offered to take care of him so I could finish my work, but something inside told me to just take that time and spend it with my kiddo.

He was a little sick–nothing too serious, just the typical winter congestion, runny nose, and light cough. We all know that when babies get like this, they get needy. They need and want their mamma’s attention, even if they just sit in your lap whining and wailing when they can’t get comfortable because they don’t feel good.

Instead of writing the article that I had planned, I spent the evening playing peek-a-boo, listening to baby  babbling as I tried to teach him new words, making funny faces in the mirror with him, and snuggling on the couch watching Disney’s Tarzan with the rest of the bunch.

All of this came after measuring my oldest on our wall for her yearly birthday measurement and realizing that she has grown 9 inches since we started measuring her on our wall, and she grew 4 inches in the past year!

After everyone finally went to bed, I sat up thinking about the other article I was going to write, but I couldn’t write it. I was having a major case of writer’s block because I couldn’t stop thinking about the events from the evening.

I was thinking about my to-do list, my plan, time carved out, scheduling, being responsible, and how I tossed it all aside to hang out with my family.

It really didn’t hurt anything. It just required me to stay up a little bit later and wake up a little bit earlier. But what I gained from it was worth it plus some.

Time is fleeting. Kids grow. Things change. Your life will look different with each passing year.

Teach us to number our days

I love the verse in Psalm 90:12:

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. 

So trust your instinct and toss out the to-do list from time to time. Shuffle schedules and trust yourself. Sometimes what seems like the most pressing matter really isn’t the most pressing matter at all.

I love how this verse encourages us to value the time we have. It’s not a verse of warning that life is short. It’s an encouragement to  value the time we have and use it wisely. This verse encourages us to grow in wisdom with our choices of how we spend our time.

It encourages me to be more conscious of how I spend my time, where I spend my time, and who I spend it with.

I want to use it wisely.

Do you make a to-do list?

Do you own it? Or does it own you?