A Little More Love and a Lot More Patience

I am crazy about my kid in good ways and in bad ways. He and I spend a lot of time alone together, and I've had to make some tough calls about how to parent his forever evolving curiosities. He's into everything wanting to know how something works, why it's needed and why it happens.

We love the curiosity, but sometimes he really just can't process the idea that he has to keep his paws off of things, like, say, other people's motorcycles. He also can't just reach over and take things out of friends' hands when he wants to see how something works. But in the way of early childhood he's still very self-centered.

But we're working on it. Today at the arts and crafts table at the library he was very good about sharing stickers and glue with the other children at the table. He got moderately frustrated over cutting his crown, but he was tired from our morning activities, so I cut him a break.

We also had friends over for dinner tonight and he got along pretty well with them. He had a moment or two where he was too rough, and, of course he tried to apologize and hug, but his hug ended up being more like a half tackle of the other child's leg as he came up the stairs for a reprieve. Some things, you just have to live through to understand. And let's face it, social situations are the best way to learn. What I did like was that both boys were able to verbalize their needs to me, and I praised them both for the communication, but then had them talk to each other. Once they did that, they were fine and kept playing. And it was nice to see my son on the floor telling stories and playing. It also meant I got to put together our schedule of activities for the next couple of weeks.

Being a 24-hour SAH Mom is different than the last few years for me. Managing my doctor's and physical therapy appointments in the middle of the day is the most challenging. But I'm blessed to have very nice friends who have been helping me out. Luckily 1/2 day camps at Little Gym start soon, so I'll get 3 hours in the middle of the day to have some time to schedule appointments that are not child friendly while he's running around inside the gym. :-)

I realized pretty quickly that my child is going to tire of me very soon this summer. He's used to having the stimulation of 19 other kids in his class at school for 7 hours a day. I'm pretty slow moving in comparison. So, yeah, I'm learning to have a little more love and understanding for a child whose schedule just changed as much as mine did and we're both trying to have a lot more patience with one another.