Alternate title: Making Me Very Happy

Going for walks with these two always helps to clear my mind. Roo and I get home after work, Eric meets us in the garage with the stroller and off we go! Rooney is happiest in the stroller, and Eric and I use this time to catch up on the day and give each other undivided attention. Rooney points out all the fire hydrants and puppies, and I can’t help but notice the most beautiful clouds in the sky, the handsome guy next to me and the loveliness of a (mostly) quiet neighborhood.

When we arrive back at 505, the only thing that entices Roo out of her stroller is the lure of her high chair, on the deck, where we share dinner.

Oh, spring! Thank you for your wonderousness. Don’t tell autumn I said this, but you might be winning me over.

It’s said that when you are married, two become one. We’ve always taken this pretty seriously, trying to love each other for who we are and recognizing that one of our greatest strengths as a married couple is that we are better together. Parenting has been a learning process for us both, but we’ve done it together.

To be honest, I’m not sure how anyone ever goes at this parenting thing alone. We’ve all heard the staggering statistics of broken homes and the effects that it has on the kids. And for me personally, growing up with divorced parents since I was 2 had its challenges. (For the circumstances, I had an amazing childhood.)

We’ve made it a year (13 months today!) with the addition of a little human being in our lives, and it’s been a lot of fun (most of the time) to study our daughter and understand her needs, wants and desires. One of those desires, and a great asset that she brings to the family already, is that she strives to keep us together.

Keeping the Family Together

When all three of us are home, Rooney wants us all to be in the same room. This started when she learned to crawl. If all three of us are in her bedroom and I leave to go get something from the kitchen, she takes notice and sounds the alarm. With a subtle whimper she’ll start vigorously crawling to the hallway where she can see both mom and dad, and she’ll just sit there, in perfect view of us both, until we are together again.

If we are hanging out in the living room and Rooney is playing independently, and one of us takes out our iPhone to catch up on the all-important social media, Rooney acts as police. She crawls right over to take away our phone so that our family time is of the highest quality. (OK, maybe she just wants to play with our iPhone, but it’s a great reminder to us to put them away. Although, this makes it tough when we just want to snap a photo of her!)

At first I thought these things were cute, but now I think it’s a great reminder of how families are meant to be together, not apart. It’s helped shape our family time, and we are very intentional about doing things together rather than apart. It will be very interesting to see how this shapes the dynamics of our family as we not only grow older, but possibly grow in number, too.

It amazes me how smart babies are. How simple their minds work, and how complicated we make things sometimes. Our daughter intuitively knows that it’s better when our family is together. She doesn’t like it when daddy has to leave for work in the morning. She gets sad. And then I get sad. But soon we get distracted and go on with our day, only to come back together in the evening for more family play time. And our time apart helps us make the most of the time we have together.

How do you make the most of family time?

As the long Thanksgiving weekend came and passed, there was an over-abundant amount of football on TV. And I love football. I love to watch it every chance I get, which I think is probably less than the average guy. I guess as I get older I am getting wiser. Time on earth is precious, and knowing who won what game in what week to upset the team your buddy is a fan of can simply be a time suck. It can strain relationships and it’s something that frankly just isn’t worth it to me anymore.

Again, I love watching football. If there was nothing else to be done all day long, I could and would sit in front of the TV and watch it all. It’s a fascinating game with so many moving parts and strategies that I can’t help but enjoy this great American sport. And we should allow time in our lives for relaxation and recreation, but not at the expense of time with our family. Of course, if your entire family likes to watch football together then by all means, close out of this post and watch some football – this time of year, it’s on five days a week! For those of us with families that might be divided on the subject, just remember this from Luke 12:34 (the Message):

The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted four kids.

Why?

• I think it looks cool in family photos.
• I like even numbers.
• I love having a sister and a brother, so if we have four kids, there would be a chance of each of our kids having that, too. (I’d ideally have two girls and two boys. Yes, I know I can’t choose. Or maybe I can? If we adopt?)

I realize that those reasons are kind of silly.

So I’m curious! Did you grow up with three siblings? How far apart are you in age? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like?

This post was inspired by this one. One thing that really stuck out to me when reading it and that was the concept of the man being the head of the family and the wife being the heart. We’ve written about what the Bible says about this in the past, but this was a refreshing spin on the subject.

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