Learn from your children

Have you ever sat back and thought about how children process information, go through major life changes, explore their world? I spent a good portion of the day today doing that.

When do we lose the ability to just "be"? Puberty? The day we are handed our driver's license? When we give birth to our first child? We spend the majority of our time cleaning, cooking, working and go go going that we forget to just sit down, breathe and just BE. Lay on the floor and drive a toy car around. It doesn't matter if you are playing WITH your child or if they have been sleeping for 3 hours....try it, it is unbelievably calming.

Kids are the most accepting, loving people. Life just IS to them. They don't care what color you are, if a family has two mommies or two daddies, they just don't care. Things like that are not important to them. Should they be all that important to us?

When does building a fort from 3 bedsheets become boring and stupid? I am 30 years old and I had a blast doing just that today. I realize that life changes and responsibilities get bigger and more stressful but do we have so little time in our day to build a fort? To climb a tree? To jump in a big pile of yellow leaves? You know what? I don't care if you do not have children. Go outside, rake a pile of leaves and plop yourself into it. Now.

Slow down, enjoy every moment. Be thankful.

When your children are fighting for the 83rd time in 3 hours, remind yourself that they are learning how to negotiate and go after what they want. And that they really like ice packs for their battle wounds.

When your 21 month old throws food on the floor, again, remember that she is expressing her dissatisfaction with the yummy goodness you provided her. And that she thinks you need to mop.

When all 3 of your children scream for an entire day, be thankful they have nice, strong lungs. And be thankful that yours are louder.

When you think that you cannot take it anymore, feel free to lock yourself in the bathroom and scream. It feels good. And kind of scares the kids a bit.

And at the end of the day, when you tuck your kids into bed, be thankful that you managed to survive another day.....and so did your children.

I am writing this mostly as a reminder to myself. To calm down, breathe, and just let it be. I am outnumbered every day and sometimes it feels like I may completely break down and run away. I don't. But I daydream about it often. Like hourly.

Identification

My children identify people by their possessions or other members of their family. I never considered it odd until I realized that no one else does this.

Examples -

Grandpa with the squeaky belt = Father-in-law. He has a squeaky belt on his truck.
Grandma and Grandpa with Eddie = My mom and step-dad. They have a dog named Eddie.
Grandma and Grandpa with motorcycle = My dad and step-mom. They have a Harley.
Bob with flat tired = My brother. His car has flat tires.
Baby Carmen = Bill's cousin. She was pregnant..therefore she WAS the baby.
Cindy with rice = My friend Cindy has a son named BRYCE.
Grape Grandpa with the cows = My grandpa lived by cows. He has since passed away.
Mike with the big brown truck = UPS guy

So I guess their odd behavior may be caused by their parents. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.

Drought

There seems to be a drought in my ramblings. I need to rectify this situation. So here are some random thoughts about my family -

Rachel farts. A lot. When she does, she feels the need to tell everyone in the town. It no longer embarrasses me, I just roll with it. She also likes to hit her sister and then doctor her up. We are working on pretend injuries to fix. Lets not give Cora a laceration that need stitches, because Rachel is not getting the sewing kit. Cora would end up with her lip sewn to her earlobe.

Gavin is very bossy. Very demanding. I spend a lot of time either ignore his demands ("Mom, give me some milk!") or explaining to him that he will catch more flies with honey.

Me - Gavin, you will catch more flies with honey.
Gavin - I don't want flies, I want milk.
Me - Ask me nicely.
Gavin - give me milk now please.
Me - Honey.
Gavin - What do you mean catching flies?
Me - Ask me nicely and I will give you some milk.
Gavin - Can I have the fly swatter?
Me - No.
Gavin - Give me milk!

So this goes on for a good 20 minutes. Yes, it would have been easier to just give him the damn milk but it would not have done any good. He is learning though, it only takes 20 minutes to ask nicely now. It used to take 45 minutes and a 2 hour tantrum. He may be stubborn, but his mama has him beat. She also has Sam Adams and Excedrin Migraine at the ready.

Cora...sweet bean....not so sweet. She is the biggest drama queen I have ever seen. If you tell her "No", she runs across the room to scream and cry. Poor, sad Cora.

My kids still drive me ape shit crazy. But our good, cooperative days are growing. Now if they would give me 5 minutes to write a blog post more often, we'd be golden.