A Wife Loved Like The Church

I’ve joked that if given the chance, the girls would permanently attach themselves to me. From the moment they wake up, to the moment they go to bed, they are constantly touching me. A pat on my arm to get my attention. A sweet hug to show their love. Or my personal favorite, sticking their hands up my shorts/skirt while I’m cooking. Actually, that last one drives me a little batty.

While I’ve always said touch is one of my love languages, I think 3.5 years into motherhood might be proving that wrong. {My love language now is extra sleep.} Now before you think I don’t like loving on my girls, please know that I do. Very, very much. I could hug, snuggle, kiss on them all day and be perfectly happy. But {and that’s a very big but}, there are different touches that can make me start to unravel, in a mama’s-losing-it sorta way.

Like clinging to my feet while I’m trying to clean {Hannah literally clings to my feet, forcing me to drag her around with me}.

Or, patting my arm while repeatedly saying “mama, mama, mama, mama, mama”.

Or, in a moment of sibling rivalry, deciding who can sit the closest to me while we’re reading {normally resulting in jumping on me}.

There are several more, but frankly, they are a bit TMI {if you’re a mom, or married, use your imagination… yeah}.

So, from 6 am to 8 pm, there is a whole lotta touching going on. And really, after the fourteenth time of having a little hand go up my shorts, I have to draw a boundary.  Rather than waiting till I’ve hit my touch limit for the day, I schedule out personal “no talk, no touch” times throughout the day. One normally after we’ve had breakfast and sent Jonathan off for the day. Then one during Hannah’s nap and Julia’s quiet time. And then a final one in the late afternoon or early evening. It might sound harsh to some of you, but I need my “no talk, no touch” time.

I set the timer for 10-20 minutes {it’s usually longest in the morning so I can have my quiet time} and the girls know that they can’t talk or touch me until the timer goes off. Once the timer rings, we are all back in the game, with little hands everywhere. And by then, I’ve had enough “no touching” to be ready for the next round. There are times when the touching starts to drive me crazy between the “no talk, no touch” times. But rather than flat out telling them to stop touching me, I ask them nicely to only do it once. Or in the case of who-can-sit-closest-to-mama, I tell them I can read two stories – one story with my arm around one girl, and another story with my arm around the other girl.

Do you have touchy children? How do you handle too much touchiness?