Kids just want your love

The other week my oldest was face-timing with my mom.

While I watched them talking it made so so happy but also broke my heart at the same time.  

We don’t live near our families, which means that my girls don’t get to see a lot of their family except for maybe once or twice a year.  It breaks my heart because growing up we were only 4 hours away from most of our family, so we got to see them pretty often.

But no matter the distance, kids know and feel when they are loved.

To them love is shown and felt, not bought.

Here’s the thing…. when I think back on my childhood I honestly can’t remember what things I got that I “so desperately wanted.” Honestly I don’t remember hardly anything I got growing up.

Kids aren’t impressed with stuff.  I should probably rephrase that…. although that might be impressed at the time, kids don’t truly care about stuff.

Kids want your time.  They want to know that you are there and that you are interested. 

I don’t remember all the gifts my grandparents got me when I was growing up.  But I do remember my mamaw sitting on the side porch with me playing the car game (you know the one where you pick a color and count how ever many of that color goes by).  I remember my papaw would swing my sister and I on the handmade swing that he somehow got up in what seemed like the biggest tree I ever saw.

I remember the plays my cousins and I would put on for my grandparents, each time they seemed so impressed like it was the best play in the world…….

Mamaw and how she was ready for breakfast the second her feet hit the floor.  

Papaw taking us on a fishing day trip. 

The easter egg hunts

The super early Christmas mornings

The phone calls on birthdays

The time mamaw and papaw carried my sister and I out of their flooded house after big rain storm to get us somewhere safe before they even thought about saving anything in their house.

They didn’t have to give us gifts to show us that they cared.  They did it with their actions. 

We never questioned that they loved us, because they always showed us. 

We’ve all probably heard the saying “you will never look back on your life and think, I spent too much time with my kids (or grandkids). “ And oh how true that saying is.

More than anything kids just want your love.  Don’t forget to let them know how special they are to you.