Just give me one second

I must utter those words a hundred times a day. "Mom, can you get me a snack?" "Mom can I have a drink?. "Mom can you help me find my shoes?" Just a minutes, just a minute, just a minute.

Today Grace was looking for her Spiderman notebook. She realized it was in the "craft closet" (which we keep the girls out of to keep it semi-neat) and asked me to help her get it. I responded with the days twentieth uttering of "just give me one second". To which she responded "ok but usually give me one second means it won't happen."

In that moment I felt so bad. In the course of trying to raise the kids, keep the house up, run the errands and work from home how many times have I forgotten to do something for my kids. Hundreds? Thousands??

As a Mom it's nothing but to a four year old it's something. It's not being heard. It's being patient with no reward. Even the way she said it was so incredibly patient and non-judgemental. She wasn't making commentary she was simply making an observation.

We can't stop what we're doing every single time. If we did our kids would be spoiled brats and we'd never get anything done. At the same time it was an excellent reminder that kids need to feel heard. They need to feel like when they talk someone listens.

I think I am a little hypersensitive because with a baby coming I know this will be even more of an issue. What I do know for sure is that I'm going to try to listen more. If I won't remember that they need something in their backpack I'll write it down and do it later. I will do my best to make them feel heard.