For the Beauty of the Earth and Parenting the Young Child

Evie and I finally made it back to Kindermusik this morning. It's been a long time since we missed the last two classes. Evie is still not so sure about it and needs a lot of reassurance that everything will be okay. She did like the hula hoop activity and the dusting song. I will be sure to try the dusting song at home since there is certainly not a shortage of dust. Mrs. Jan asks all the children to give her hugs at the end of class. Evie must have a daily quota of hugs because she is quite selectivel about giving them out. Every other kid in the class gave the teacher a hug and then Evie did it after they had all left. Shy is not an adjective used to describe my sweet daughter but it sure fit the bill this morning.

   Evie and I enjoyed admiring the gorgeous leaves on our way home! They are absolutely beautiful with the vivid oranges and reds. Evie jumped around in some leaves in our yard which made her so very happy.

   Naptime finally came and Evie had no interest in books or songs. Works for me so I just plopped her in the crib and she went right to sleep within two minutes. She must have been exhausted from her busy morning. My seasoned mom friend Krystal and I chatted about the challenges of raising toddlers. Goodness, I had no idea this independence streak would come so early. It's so nice to read about other mom's and the experiences that they have with their own children. There's been lots of talk in blog land about being more transparent meaning not just sharing the good stuff. Well, today we had a few hours that were really rough! Evie can be a handful and I need the patience of Job to be the kind of mother that she needs. Lindsay sent me this fabulous article. It's paraphrased but it's a perfect sketch of a day with young children:

"When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.


It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.


It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.


It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.


It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.


It's also a choice, yes. And a joy."

Pretty amazing!!! It's so true especially the part about resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief. HA!I feel so fortunate to spend my days with my sweet girl but it's harder than I ever imagined it to be but there's no one else that I'd rather spend my days with than Evie.
 
We made it through our rough morning and had a fantastic afternoon.  It's a lot of work to get Evie in and out of the car especially for the short errands but we went to the bank, the gas station, Target, a lighting store and the park. Evie has been talking about her castle since we got back so I tried a local park here but it was not the castle that Evie had in mind. She's pretty particular about her castles.
 
   It started raining so we had to come home. Evie and I had so much fun reading books, playing with her baby dolls and trying to get my room put back together. Isn't she so cute reading to her stuffed dog?