Get Up and Get Out!!!

Sometimes that recliner is just a little too comfortable.

You know you should get up, get out, and do something, and you're sure that you will...but in a few minutes. Not right now. You're cozy in the chair. You've got your smart phone and you're cruising through a game of Candy Crush. You're mindlessly watching another episode of Family Feud. (Man, that Steve Harvey sure can make anything sound like a sexual innuendo.) Or, you're scrolling through the recipes, political diatribes, and mindless nostalgia that Facebook has become.

You'll get up and do something...in a minute.

And while you're sitting there in the chair, what are the kids doing? Playing quietly? Reading? Moping? Fighting with each other? Getting into things they shouldn't? Continually interrupting you so you lose track of which Candy you are supposed to be Crushing?

Did you know that if you get up out of the chair and interact with your kids, that they are less likely to misbehave? (I have no scientific study to cite to back up that statement, but it sure seems like common sense to me.)

Let me ask you a question: What are your kids more likely to remember, yet another day of you sitting in the chair staring at a screen, or that time you took them to the children's museum?

Which do you think she'll remember more, this, or you sitting in your chair playing with your phone?

When your kids grow up and look back at their childhoods, they will definitely think of the times you played with them at the park, went hiking with them, played basketball with them, or did anything outside with them before they think of all the times they tried in vain to get your attention while you sat there like a big, giant lump.

And what about you? What will you remember? Will it be that list of "Ten Things the Producers of Mork and Mindy Didn't Want You To Know" on Facebook? (And the 24 times you had to click the "NEXT" button to get through it.) Or will you remember the look on your girl's face the first time she gets the courage to go down the BIG slide?

It's all up to you. Look, I know the chair is soft and cozy. But, when you look back on their life will you ever say, "Remember all the times I sat in that comfortable chair, doing nothing?" I don't think so. Laziness never was happiness.