family time

 

My favorite time of day is mid-morning. Right after I've taken Justin and Audrey to school. Davy and I come home and walk from the chill of the outside air into our warm house. We leave the tv off and I start straigtening up. There are dishes from breakfast to be washed, beds to be made, pajamas left on the floor and hair brushes left on the table from the rush of getting out the door in the morning.

 

Davy follows me from room to room "helping". Yesterday he had the broom with him and "swept up" wherever I went, swinging the big broom around, narrowly missing the tv a couple of times.

 

We get the house all put back together and then read some books on the couch and have some lunch. I love that he gets some one-on-one time with me while his sister is at school.

 

But I also love it when it's time to go get Justin and Audrey from school. When Davy wakes up from his nap I ask him, "should we go get Daddy and Audrey?" and he gets all excited and runs to go grab his shoes. We stand outside and wait for Audrey by her school and he collects and throws pinecones until her teacher walks her out the door. I hear all about her day as we drive down to ISU to pick up Justin. We park and wait and when Justin walks out of the library I say "there's Dad!" and David points out the window and yells, "Da!". And, once or twice a week Justin gets in the car and says "should we run over to Great Harvest?" My diet is blown for the day, but it's worth it as we sit all together eating brownies and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and telling each other about our day.

Then there's 8:00 pm when the kids are in bed and I don't have an apartment to clean. That's another good time of day. Once David is asleep and Audrey has been read a story I hop in the shower while Justin works on homework. We turn off most of the lights in the house except for the lamp in the living room and the light above the oven in the kitchen. I usually have a spicy fall candle burning.  I sit down on the couch, clean and in my pajamas, and read while I wait for him to finish whatever paper he's writing, then he comes in the living room and joins me and we usually read or talk or watch some television together. It's cozy and quiet and we're constantly tempted to stay up way too late just to get a little bit more time together uninterrupted.

 

I guess my favorite time, is any time, with these three.