Rewriting my obituary

Despite the title, this is not intended as a morbid post. Rather, this is the culmination of several months of slow realisation that last weeks Christchurch earthquake has brought into sharp focus.

If something had happened to me yesterday, my obituary would read something like this:

Rebecca was a good wife and mother. She tried hard to keep her household in a state of happy chaos, and was mostly successful. She had many good ideas that unfortunately will now never come into fruition.

Know what? That’s not good enough for me. I know I have a problem with procrastination, with laziness, and with letting myself get distracted to the point I don’t follow through on plans. That is not how I want to be remembered. I would rather my obituary went more like this:

Rebecca was an amazing wife and a wonderful mother. She put her family first, but still managed to have a helping hand available for others. Her children remember that their house was always full of laughter and the pantry was full of baking. Rebecca’s many and varied interests saw her become part of a wide group of friends, all of whom will miss her smile (and her chocolate cupcakes).

I know it’s not going to be easy, but the only one who can make the second obituary a reality is me. I am fully capable of everything stated above, all I have to do is step outside my comfort zone and do it. I can bake (and I do make good chocolate cupcakes 😉 ), and my children love having home-baked goodies to eat. I have the time to do it, I just never get around to it, same as some of the housework during the week. This is going to change. I am a little OCD, but channel it into making sure everything is organised. I just need to take one room at a time, sort it out and make a list of what is needed to be able to put everything away properly.  I love to read, to sew, to write poetry and have always wanted to learn sign language so am going to look at local groups and night classes that can extend these interests. Once the children are a little older, I will restart studying to become a librarian.

What would you like your obituary to say, and how are you going to achieve it?

– Rebecca

Daddy time

Photo by Dave Kellam

Last Monday I started ensuring that I spent quality time with all of my children individually. Having 5 kids it seems like a challenge, however a couple of weeks ago I came up with the (possibly obvious) solution. I decided that I would spend the time between getting home from work and dinner each weekday spending time with one of the kids.

Rebecca helped by setting up a roster. This wasn’t just for Daddy time, but also for helping cook dinner with Mummy (also quality time), saying grace before dinner (they LOVE to do this!), feeding the pets (rats and budgies) and checking the mail. Five kids and five daily things to do. It keeps them all happy because they know that they all have something to do, and that they will get their turn at the other things during the week also.

So, back to Daddy time.

• Mr X4 started off the week. Now, I’ve allowed them to choose what they want to do with me. Mr X4 chose to go to The Warehouse to look at toys. How easy is this! So we drove off to The Warehouse and spent some time looking at the toys. He LOVED it!!!
• Tuesday was Mr J5. He chose to colour in with me and then we headed off to the supermarket together to grab a few bits and pieces that we needed. On the way home he started planning what he wants to do with me next week :).
• Miss K9 also decided to go to The Warehouse on Wednesday and so we looked at girls toys, girls clothing and then books – all her favourite things! (This is the only time that I considered feeling sorry for myself… but I got over it pretty quick as I was spending some need quality time with my daughter.)
• On Thursday I pushed Miss C1 on the swing and we played on the tramp.
• On Friday Mr J2 was so keen for me to push him on the swing, so I did this for nearly 10 minutes before we hopped on the tramp with a ball and played and played and played together. I’ll tell you that I was more tired after this than he was!

On Tuesday (22 February 2011) was the day of the 6.3 magnitude Christchurch earthquake. I was heartbroken as I heard of the lives lost in the earthquake – adults, children and babies; and of the parents who were missing their children. This terrible event really hammered home to me the importance of spending quality time with my kids. It doesn’t matter how long it is. The important thing is that it’s done. Kids are important and they love to spend time with their parents. Make the most of the time you have with your kids. Love them with everything you’ve got at all times. I know I’m loving on my family much more right now.

Our love, thoughts and prayers go out to those families who have lost loved ones in the Christchurch earthquake.

– Nathaniel