If you look closely in the picture, you’ll see what I caught one morning and what I was so thrilled to see…a snapshot of simple play and imagination…wrapped up in a big pink cowboy hat.

Remember the game Hungry, Hungry Hippos? Sometimes I feel that way as a mom, trying to gather and implement as many “teachable moments” as possible. The thing is, just like the game, the hippo is focused, and while she is accomplishing much, she’s only working in one, linear direction.

The title of this post came from God knocking on my heart a few months ago. As a homeschool mom, I thoroughly enjoy being involved in choosing and planning curriculum for our children.  There’s so much available now to parents. With all of the possibilities of the layers of themes and projects and assignments with deep meaning mixed with memorable fun, my mom recently laughed and asked me, “How can you sleep at night?” I guess that’s where I get it. She’d be planning like crazy.

But God opened my eyes to the fact that while everything can be tied somehow into an educational experience, the opposite is not true. The take home is this: LEARNING ISN’T EVERYTHING.

And I want to give my children everything.

When I am so concentrated on collecting one single track, I’m forsaking something else. While I was getting really good at lesson planning, and like I said, even making it “fun,” God pointed out that my muscles got weak in the area of just being able to play. Muscles are muscles whether we are talking gym or bathtub. I realized I wasn’t as good as I used to be at picking up a couple of bath tub toys and making a story. Or listening to a plot made out of lego mini figures. It became MUCH easier for me to share something under our learning umbrella (even if it was from the heart) than it was to sit down and play with kinetic sand.

Our kids need this imaginative play just as much, if not more, than what we think of as necessary school. Play is essential for brain development. But in the “refrigerator” of my mind, at the end of the day, I feel productive if we’ve finished a worksheet, read another chapter in a novel, or conquered a math lesson. I think as parents we have an invisible “look what I did today” board, and we like to see it full.

But what if our children’s refrigerator is different? What if it’s one of those stainless steel ones that doesn’t hold the same magnets? They collect things too. They collect explicit (actual, tangible) memories of things that happened in their day. They also collect implicit (emotional) memories—the feelings they have because of the things that happened. Even though my children are past toddlerhood, I picture cute, chubby little fingers holding a drawing up to a clothespin line of success—their treasure to display for the day. Maybe your student wrote a stellar book report or showed beautiful handwriting (both worthy of celebration). But what the child would put in front of all of those accomplishments would be 10 minutes with mom or dad playing play dough or a pillow fight or throwing the baseball.

THAT would be their cover page for the day. Their memory of choice.

Unstructured moments of play with you.

We have a great opportunity here to collect these moments—more now than maybe ever before in our parenting season. This high concentration of time together we may never have again. This means more challenge as parents (it’s not easy!) We are refereeing more arguments between siblings…more noise…less time for ourselves. I know. But I think we can use one of my son’s favorite sayings here, “I bet Satan never saw this coming!” A chance for us to be Christ to our children—to have so much time with them that they see our love and devotion and commitment to them and our family.*

So do the lesson plans. Conquer the math assignment. Try the science experiment. Teach history, and follow it up by leaving a legacy.

Just be available to get down on the floor and decide if it’s going to be a tickle fest or a wrestling match.

*On balancing work, chores, and family…Some of the best parenting advice I received this past year was from Pastor Ken Werlein of Faithbridge Church. He says to advertise your time with your children. Tell them when your bracket is that you can spend time with them, and tell them way ahead of time so that they can look forward to it. If they continue to ask if you can play with them, you can gently remind them of what is coming. Tell them about the 30 minutes you’ll have today and the 2 hours you may have tomorrow or whatever block of time that you’ll have at the end of the day or mid-day to spend with them. Talk it up—and when that time comes, be faithful in those minutes—give your all to them. Don’t feel bad it’s all you’ve got. You are giving them all you’ve got! All of us are working around a work schedule at home of sorts, so don’t forget you are teaching them good work ethic and how to manage your time. This post is to encourage us all to use the time we have (whatever that is for your family), and make sure the structure is mixed with the unstructured of pure play.