A Family That Plays Together, Stays Together

I totally admit it, when it comes to playing with my children, I am not a very good mother. I find it difficult to sit down and play Barbies or a board game with them. I have always made myself feel better about this little shortcoming by remembering how I am good at reading to them, helping them with homework and practicing, doing art projects with them–but yeah, there’s always the little niggling at the back of my mind that I am not really the kind of mom who goes outside and really plays with them.

Another way I have justified this is that Joel is that kind of parent. He definitely wins the prize for “fun parent” in our household (see above snowman)!

So, this week’s (maybe I should say this month’s, as I haven’t been keeping up on these as well as I would like) Project Walking Into a Hug goal is Play Every Day.

Our time is important to our children–more important than anything else. And while I do give them of my time by reading or helping or creating projects with them, I do need to step up and have more play time with them (or any at all, as the case may be). They always love it when I do, and it’s usually relatively painless for me, even though at the beginning I always do it begrudgingly.

According to the weatherman, we’ve got quite the storm blowing in tomorrow. It will nearly kill me (because I do not like playing in the snow one bit), but I am going to go out and play in the snow with my girls. But after we’re finished with that, we’ll do what I’m best at and cuddle up together with a book and maybe even some hot chocolate.

How do you play with your children?