Category: gratitude

children, gratitude, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, self-discovery

Watch and Learn

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I had taken the boys to the pool and sat back and watched as they energetically tackled the slide and sprinklers.  At the top of the slide are two attached water cannons.  When the slide gets crowded these cannons become quite popular.  A boy a good head taller approached T.Puzzle and attempted to yank the cannon from T.Puzzle’s grip.  I had to coach myself to stay put and let it unfold.  As much as I wanted to leap to his rescue I decided to see how T.Puzzle would handle it.  Turns out years of assertiveness training from his older brother paid off.  T.Puzzle stood his ground and as the older boy continued to try to intimidate him with words and a few swings of his arms, T.Puzzle didn’t budge.

I learned a valuable lesson.  The minute you stop trying to control something, especially the behavior or circumstances of your children, these are the moments when they begin to show you who they really are.  If you are really lucky they may show you something unexpected.  They may show you that bullies are only as powerful as you allow them to be and sometimes a four year old can handle a confrontation without hesitation.  That’s when you realize maybe you need to start taking notes from your kids instead of always insisting on being the one who is teaching.

children, gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

A Really Good Week

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While Full Speed has been honing his basketball skills at camp this week, T.Puzzle and I have spent much quality time together.  T.Puzzle didn’t make the age requirement for camp so I tried to plan some special things for him and me to do.  Here’s the breakdown along with T.Puzzle’s assessment of the each day:

Monday- Chik-fil-a lunch and play time at the indoor playground

T.Puzzle said, “Monday is a very good day!”

Tuesday- Storytime at the library concluded with an art project

T.Puzzle said, “It was probably a little bit good.”  Apparently the quiet sitting and the craftiness were not truly his thing.

Wednesday- Pool time along with pizza from the Tiki Shack

T.Puzzle said, “This is probably a very awesome day!”

Thursday- bike ride to the park and playing hide and seek with Mom

T.Puzzle said, “I’m getting boring (referring to his boredom over the bike ride), when are we gonna be there?”  As for the rest he highly enjoyed himself.  Here’s a video of him ‘sharing’ a goldfish (his favorite snack) with his Dad.

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Friday- We had to stick around home as the laundry situation had reached emergency status.  While Mom tackled the laundry problem, there was still time to read some books together.

T.Puzzle said, “Friday was a really good day.”

I completely agree, except for the laundry part of course.

children, gratitude, happiness, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Diet Coke

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A neighbor and I were recently chatting about raising our boys.  Hers are grown, as you all know, mine are not.  We both said that in our experience motherhood gets better with each passing year.  It’s a combination of learning to accept things exactly as they are and the natural maturation of children.  Basically it’s easier to let things slide if your kids are more self sufficient, follow directions better and have more fully developed personalities to entertain you.

I was keenly aware of this conversation as I took T.Puzzle to lunch at Chik-fil-a.  It was a breeze.  He sat quietly and promptly ate his food.  He went and played independently.  Instead of endangering other kids with aggressive behavior, he actually helped a little girl who was stuck halfway between platforms.  Yes, that’s right, he HELPED her.  He didn’t bite her, kick her or punch her.  He was so proud of himself he ran out to tell me all about it.  He also lobbied that this may be a great item to include in his behavior report for tae kwon do this evening.

Naturally, there will be times today when he tests my patience.  The nice thing is that now there is more balance.  He gives a little and therefore so do I.

And for the record as I sat alone drinking my soda and watching him play, it may have been the best Diet Coke I ever tasted.

children, gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

3 Categories

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This has happened to me countless times.  I’m on an errand of some sort with the boys that inevitably places us in a too small, overcrowded waiting area.  This week it was for my allergy shots.  Part of the problem is I stubbornly refuse to use electronic devices to keep them entertained and quiet.  They each are allowed to pick two hotwheels cars and must use their imaginations to pass the time.

It quickly becomes an experiment on a sociological level.  I am able to divide the people in the waiting room into three categories:

1.  People who think my lively boys are adorable and highly entertaining.  Which naturally they are.

2.  People who have never raised boys, who rarely are around boys and who clearly wish that the world was child-free. These are my favorite category of people.  They are so bright and cheery.

3.  People who don’t care.  No, wait, these actually are my favorite category.

Small spaces, big spaces, crowded or deserted, none of this changes that my boys are who they are.

Thankfully I happen to fall into the first category so it works out.

children, gratitude, humor, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

The Not So Grand Canyon

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The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved...
Image via Wikipedia

Through the years of my motherhood adventure I often find it difficult to relate to my boys being that they are, well, boys.  Thankfully as they have gotten older I am finding more ways to feel connected to them.  One activity we all enjoy is doing learning activities together.  They actually like worksheets (for the most part) and I like helping them (for the most part).  It’s a great way to keep them entertained, quiet and every once in a while they actually learn something.

As Full Speed and I were working our way through some sentences trying to determine what the proper nouns were, he was fascinated by the name Grand Canyon.   Once he correctly identified it as a proper noun I told him that I had visited the Grand Canyon and it was spectacular.

“How cool!  How big were the cannons Mom?  Were they everywhere you went?”

“Not exactly, Full Speed.  There aren’t actually cannons.  A CANYON is a great, gaping hole in the ground that can go on for miles and miles and is enormous.  I have pictures of the Grand Canyon if you want to see.”

“No, thanks.”

Apparently if there wasn’t heavy artillery involved, he wasn’t interested.

Go figure.

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