I tend to overanalyze and critique the way I do things as a mom. Don't we all? But lately I've been really hard on myself.
Well, I think God has a way of nipping these things in the bud, especially when they're getting in the way of being content, happy, and at peace.
This time, it was my son that knocked me on my butt and helped me realize that, really, everything is A-OK!
1. Sitting on the couch next to me, watching me work, he says, "Mommy, I like our house. It's my favorite place."
~Music to my ears. The amount of time I spend worrying about how our house could be better is wasted on him. All he sees is his home. Oh how I wish I had the eyes of a child sometimes.
~He didn't need to go to a fancy preschool to learn how to spell. I apparently did a good enough job in between laundry, work, and bathtime to teach him how to spell his name. And as if that wasn't all, I birthed a child who learned how to spell mom and dad by himself. Good grief. Again, this helped dispel my worries about him not learning enough, fast enough, because he's not a fancy preschooler. And I really don't have to do anything besides provide paper and crayons to encourage his artistic-ness. I can relax and let him do his thing, and stop worrying that it's not a super-structured art center packed with every Crayola product on the market.
3. He looked out the window this morning and warned me that I might need an umbrella "cause it looks like rain a lot, but I don't need a hat because it's not cold."
~He's learning his weather, and all without an amazing morning circle time complete with detailed weather chart.
4. He makes a pretty incredible PB&J. In order to do this, he has figured out how to place his step stool in exactly the right place to bypass my lame attempt at keeping the PB out of his reach, and he knows to use a spoon, not knife, to spread said PB over the bread that he so carefully lays out on a paper towel on the floor.
~Watching my boy use his fine and gross motor skills to create a giant sticky mess PB&J masterpiece is enough to make me tear my hair out melt. It's real-life ordinary every-day things like this that teach him what he needs to know. I sometimes forget about that, while I'm worrying that I didn't have enough time in the day to make a sensory box for him like his preschool counterparts.
I could go on and on. The way he can play for an hour by himself and build the most hysterical zoo out of blocks and pipe cleaners and neon colored plastic animals. The way he finds every single pillow and blanket in the house and makes a giant jumping castle tent for himself and his sister. The way he helps his sister tuck her babies into bed or cook lunch in the play kitchen.
So, today, I'm in a place of "ok." Perfectly, wonderfully, and definitely ok with the life my children lead, with the decisions we've made, and with what we've done with what we've got.
Thanks to a barely four-year-old kid, my perspective has changed and I've been
encouraged and validated. Thanks buddy. :)
