Accountability

The beautiful, and sometimes frustrating thing about life, is that we always have more to learn. The more we peel away of our ugliness and our selfishness the more we see its ugly heart and how many layers are left to remove.
And yet God is patient with us as we dig deeper and He provides us often with beautiful soundtracks to our lives and our work. Right now beyond the clicking of the keyboard, I hear my toddler fighting off his nap by talking to his stuffed animals, and I smile. In the kitchen is the sound of my lentil stew boiling. It fills our house with delicious scent that is making my stomach rumble. It will be my lunch for the week. Outside cars engines are revving and I celebrate the fact that I do not have to leave yet. I am at home with my son. Again birds are tweeting and chirping, new babes calling out for food, moms gossiping through the trees as we call to eachother through the internet.
But, back to what I have to learn in the midst of these blessings given by a patient God...
I am realizing that I need to better use my time. As I have begun to so appreciate the blogs that people have shared with me, I have allowed myself to spend too much time sitting and soaking these things in. Yes, I am mostly getting my household chores done, but there is other maintenance necessary, that of my soul, and my mind, and my body.
As my little one still blesses me by napping, I need to take full advantage of that time to GROW. I have been learning to get my cleaning done while he is awake by letting him be my shadow and my apprentice. He loves it. Yesterday we swept together, he held the pan and I the broom. We scrubbed the floors together, he splashed and rubbed, I scrubbed. We did the dishes together. We vacuumed together, him with his Littly tykes vacuum, I with the real one. We did the laundry together, I pulling out things from the washer, and him throwing it into the dryer.
My mom sent me a great article on child rearing and one of the things that most stuck out to me was that we shouldn't do all of our chores and then spend a bit of time playing with our kids. We should include them as much as possible in EVERY area of our life to mentor them, so they learn, and grow.
All this has meant for me that I now have the gift of very free time during his two naptimes. And I shouldn't just plop down and scroll through the internet, or pop in a movie. I need to read challenging material to keep me informed and my mind sharp. I need to exercise to make my body strong. And, I need most importantly to really set aside time to pray and dive into Scriptures. Even the wisest and most spiritual blogs can't replace that :)
So, yes. Hold me accountable to that. Ask how I am doing. I want to use my time well.
But... today it seems that my son isn't going to give me the gift of a nap as he is in there now hollering out "mama!down down oh please please." Now that he's learning to talk its so much harder to be strict about his naps! Well, goodbye until tomorrow then.