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Email a FriendKaren - you’ve given me a lot of good ideas! I started doing a version of this with my oldest as he prepared for his FHC. We did a holy hour (or holy half hour depending on how much time we had) and then ran errands. Now that summer is here I’ve slacked off on doing this. I need to pick it up and put #2 son in the rotation too. 
Just Mommy and Me
How I bond with my kids at the grocery store
by Karen Edmisten in Family on Wednesday, July 08, 2009 6:00 AM
“Mom,” my daughter recently complained, “we haven’t had our special time for awhile! When can we do it?”
“Special time” conjures thoughts of exhilarating new activities or exotic adventures, doesn’t it? But, at our house, “special time” just might involve buying toilet paper.
My older daughters were nine and six when my youngest was born. After several miscarriages, no one thought another baby was possible and my girls and I had settled comfortably into our routine. Life was relatively quiet and pleasantly predictable. So we were all surprised and extraordinarily delighted when God graced us with another miracle.
Busy With Blessings
The girls adored their new baby sister, but I could tell they felt the loss of my previously focused attention. Our new little person required so much of 40-something me. The nursing and nighttime feedings, the constant walking, rocking, and soothing of a high-maintenance baby left me (at my “advanced maternal age” as the doctors love to call it) exhausted. I was not inclined to ferret out “quality time”—whose new name was “sleep”—with my older kids. But they needed me as much as ever.
So, when the baby was six months old, I initiated a new kind of Mommy Date. Our hectic schedule threatened to make it difficult to add one more thing, but I decided to start with something foundational: Mass.
On the planned evening, I nursed the baby, handed her off to Daddy, and grabbed my oldest daughter. As we headed to 5:30 Mass, she was giddy – she had me to herself! After Mass, we stopped for “special time dinner”: blue raspberry ice cream cones. Then we tackled some errands and wrapped up the evening, full and happy.
Keeping it Practical
I have to admit that initially I felt guilty about the errands. I scolded myself, thinking “This should be pure Mommy/Daughter time!” I worried that my daughter would feel cheated, and I apologized as I picked up paper towels and toothpaste.
She surprised me with her response: “That’s okay, Mom! I think it’s fun! I’m with you!” Kids have the uncanny knack for seeing what we grown-ups often overlook. When you’re with your favorite person in the whole wide world, what else matters?
When her turn arrived, my middle daughter had the same reaction. She not only didn’t mind the errands, she looked forward to them. The ice cream certainly helped (this time it was chocolate peanut butter swirl) but the boring errands I’d felt guilty about were not dull to my kids. They were learning (“Where does the money in that ATM come from? How does a credit card work?”) and getting a peek into the intriguing everyday business of adulthood. Boring errands, after all, are training ground for the day when my girls will be responsible for running their own boring errands.
Surprising Graces
There were other surprising benefits. There was the huge plus of getting to daily Mass, and the graces from that were many. The kids saw that Mass was a priority beyond Sundays, and that I longed to be there more often. That can be a quiet but powerful witness. And sometimes, they noticed things at daily Mass that they’d never noticed on a crowded Sunday.
Now that my daughters are teens, a final benefit is that when they’re alone with me on our regular outings, they’re more likely to open up about things they would never bring up in the midst of the busyness of a normal day with the whole family.
Finally, of course, there’s the ice cream. I love a good chocolate-peanut-butter-double-dip waffle cone as much as the next mom.
Holy Multi-tasking
Multitasking sometimes gets a bad rap. It’s true that I can be tempted to pile on so much that I could simply crash and burn. But the bottom line is this: we’re a busy family. Holy multitasking has helped me streamline a little bit of the errand clutter, make time for more prayer at Mass, and grow in my vocation as a mom. It’s so enjoyable that I recommended it to my husband, and we’ve added the occasional Daddy/Daughter breakfast date, too.
And we never run out of toilet paper.
—Karen Edmisten is author of The Rosary: Keeping Company with Jesus and Mary
Comments
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Posted by Lenetta @ Nettacow on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 4:19 PM (EDT):
Thank goodness you posted about this on your blog, Karen - it didn’t show up under F&F in my Reader! And I’d have hated to have missed this. What a great reminder that the little things are indeed special enough if we make them so.
Posted by Jill on Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009 4:26 PM (EDT):
I had a similar experience just last week. I have three sons and a baby due next month. The 5 year old had a weird “thing” on his leg so after my husband got home from work, I took him down to the Urgent Care where my step-mom is a family practice doc. He was SO EXCITED to be going alone with Mom! He chattered all the way there about how he was going on a date with Mom. The appointment was quick and afterwards I pulled into the Dairy Queen for a little treat. Well that sent him right over the moon…his enthusiasm for time alone with Mom was contagious! After our treat, I needed to stop at the Publix (grocery store) for a couple of items. I thought he would come right out of his skin!! “Oh I can’t wait to get home to tell Roman (his big brother) all about my date! We went to the doctor and then for ice cream and NOW WE GET TO GO TO PUBLIX!!!” I’ve learned, and need to make more of a point to do it, that our kids don’t need some fancy, expensive, and elaborate “quality time”. They just want the time, one-on-one, with Mom or Dad. The more kids I have the less time I have to do it, but I think the more I need to! Thanks for the great suggestion of taking them one at a time to Mass…a really wonderful idea!!
Posted by Claire on Thursday, Jul 9, 2009 11:51 PM (EDT):
This is so true. Kids love the simplest things. I think your point about preparation for their own “boring errands” is really good, too. I think SO much about all the times I ran around with my mom, and it helps that she had such a great attitude about having to do those things and didn’t just complain the whole way through (like us kids, sometimes!). Thanks for this.
Posted by Renee on Friday, Jul 10, 2009 10:59 AM (EDT):
Thank you! I live in a country (Belgium) where it’s frowned upon for the most part if you don’t put your kids in daycare so that all the time you have with them is quality and you can get on with your life. Your posy made me realise that some of this has rubbed off on me. But now I can go around town with my kids happy in the knowledge that they probably actually get something out of doing the everyday stuff with me.
Posted by Karen Edmisten on Friday, Jul 10, 2009 9:18 PM (EDT):
I’ve been out of town and so am just getting back to all these great comments—thank you! I love reading about your “everyday” stuff with the kids, so thanks to all of you who took the time here to share. I am still smiling about getting to go to Publix. 
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