Enjoying a cup of "coffee" before church. Daddy had the big kids at the car wash, so I got to enjoy a few quiet minutes alone with L.
Monday- February 22- Rock
L is two. Although he is generally a pretty easy-going kid, meltdowns and tantrums are a thing for this age, and he has his fair share. I've learned, though, to be pretty comfortable with meltdowns. I'll admit that I still get frazzled when there are things to be done rightthishotsecond and a kid is out of control wailing, but when there's nothing too pressing on the agenda, I've gotten good at just holding the space for the unhappy kid.
I say what's happening, and then I sit and wait. Today it was: "You want to stay outside, and it's time to come inside. You're very upset." After a few minutes, L generally comes to sit on my lap, and then I continue to sit and rock him until he's had his fill of crying. When he's all done with his cry, we go on with our day.
It took a long time for me to be ok with just rocking my little while he finishes working through his bad feelings. It's easy to want to just end the crying, by distracting with toys or treats or insisting on quiet. Feeling bad feelings is part of life, though, and learning to move on after you're done feeling is a good skill. So for now, L wails, and we rock, and it's another day.
Tuesday- February 23- New
I was lamenting to a friend that Z and I have nothing we consistently enjoy doing together. He's got things he loves, and I'll join in when I have the chance, but I'm never excited to play Legos or to watch him play Minecraft. Last week I randomly got the idea to introduce him to the Dada game Splendid Corpse. The basic set-up is a piece of paper folded in half for each participant. Each person spends 6 minutes drawing the top half of a strange creature, makes sure a few lines cross the fold, and then passes their paper to the next person. Each person then has to complete the creature that was passed to him without having any idea what the previous person drew above the fold.
Z loved it. I had a ton of fun playing with him. It's our new thing. Whenever we get 15 minutes, we sit down and play a round together.
Want to see a few examples?
Wednesday- February 24- Serve
My SIL, who has a standing invitation, showed up at 10 minutes to dinner time. The original meal was supposed to be sushi, which she can't stand, but I decided Wednesday morning that I wanted ginger pickled carrots in my sushi roll. I prepped the carrots, put them aside to pickle, and made Thursday's meal for Wednesday's dinner instead: loaded baked potatoes with roasted cauliflower and rapini. Everyone was delighted with the meal I served.
Friday- February 26- Sow
We went to the Museum of Science and Industry today. We've got a membership this year, so that maybe wasn't a huge deal. I did keep Z home from school, though, so he felt it as a special treat. Each kid picked one exhibit. Z picked Numbers in Nature, which included a really cool mirror maze; V picked the space exhibit, which was a disappointment to her, because it was all about NASA and space equipment, rather than being about stars and planets; L picked the farm, where V enjoyed watching the video of a calf being born over and over and over and the boys pretended to drive a combine for almost an hour.
I learned that tractors manufactured since 2010 have contained more computer technology than NASA spacecraft during the Apollo era. As in, every spacecraft that ever went to the moon had less computer technology than the average farmer parks in his barn. That's amazing.
Saturday- February 27- Merciful
Today was a good day. We walked to the library in the beautiful warm sunshine. Husband finished his first draft of the rewrite for our church constitution. We had friends over to play Settlers of Catan after dinner, and husband won. God is so merciful to give us this season of rest.
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