I was lamenting to a friend the other day that my kids’ schedules don’t leave us a lot of time to spend together as a family.
If there is free time, we rarely seize the moment to spend it together. It’s usually filled with trips to the store or chores around the house for my husband and I while the kids hang out in their rooms or play with neighborhood friends. I’m not sure they would even be enthusiastic about a hike in the park or trip to a museum at this stage in the game. Frankly, we haven’t even suggested it.
But last Saturday night, it turned out that we were all in the house with no activities on the schedule. I’d cooked up a pot of chili and the whole family ended up sitting in front of the TV watching the Ravens game. Even this is a minor miracle since some in the house are less interested in football and others are more likely to watch at the neighbors’ house. But on that night, we were all together.
And as we were sitting there, biting our nails and screaming our heads off, I realized how awesome it was that we were sharing this moment as a family. When Jacoby Jones caught that hail Mary pass and went on to score the touchdown that tied up the game in the last minutes, I looked at my older daughter as we were both screaming with excitement and it hit me how special it was.
At that moment I realized that we were spending time together as a family, and that we do it more often that I’d thought. We may not go on exciting outings or play board games every evening, but we do sit down to dinner together almost every night and, on this night, we shared the most exciting football game ever. And it was so much fun.
FranklyStein is a blog by Chesapeake Family Magazine editor Betsy Stein who lives in Catonsville with her husband, Chris, and four children, Maggie, 14, Lilly, 12, Adam, 12, and Jonah, 8.
