Its the little things

After Alyssa woke up from her nap this afternoon, I decided to take advantage of the fact that Joel was still sleeping and do an activity that I'd read about on another blog ~ a paper chain countdown. The one I read about was for Halloween, but we did a combination birthday AND Halloween one. Pink and blue chains for the days until her birthday and then purple and orange for the days between her birthday and Halloween. Each morning she'll tear off a link to count down the days. I can't remember the last time she and I did something like that ~ it was really nice to sit on the floor working on something together while watching Phineas and Ferb and not thinking about what else I "needed" to be or "should" be doing. I was reminded of how the top thing on my list NEEDS to be and SHOULD be spending time with the kids because I'll never get these chances back ... there's always laundry to be folded or a kitchen to be cleaned up or toys to be put away. And I feel like I'm in such a better place after taking time to do little things with them, so why is it so hard to make it a priority sometimes?