After months of having fun with Mia, just doing our daily "day-to-day" with little to no consequence, life throws a curveball at us. Or maybe we've been well overdue. I mean, after a string of a few solid months when people ask you, "How are you? How's life?" and you genuinely can say, "Great!" without adding qualifiers in your head ("Well, it'd be MORE wonderful if ____..."), maybe our time for real nonsense had arrived.
Maybe it is time for the terrible twos.
Mia is less than a month away from entering the age of two, technically, but behaviorally she's been there for the past month or so. Greg and I are starting to feel like everybody's out of sync, out of control and we need some firm footing again.
So, back to the drawing board where decisions will be made, a few choices eliminated, and this chiquita bambina is going to relearn who's the boss. Not her...ME. Not her...Daddy.
I'm all about "empowering" kids to know what they're capable of doing, but I'm not all about entitling kids to feel like anything's free game. So, while my actions may not have been clear to Mia in the past about communicating this ideal, it's about to change.
Wish us luck and send up a prayer or share a word of encouragement with us. We're total n00bs and humbly admit we need the most guidance here.
And to total newbies: Don't worry...it's not always like this, and every kid is different, and you can learn from our mistakes! That's part of the point of this blog...to share ideas!
life with a chiquita, chiquito, & a bambino and our epiphanies along the way
4 comments:
Good luck! I have no children, therefore no words of wisdom. But I'm sending up prayers for y'all!
You can do it, and it will be over before you know it (only to be replaced by some other not-so-fun preschooler behavior, ha!). I don't know if you're a ready or not, but I really liked the suggestions in the Happiest Toddler on the Block book. When I first read it, I was thinking "Yeah, right, whatever, no way!" but as it sunk in over the next several weeks it started to feel right. Anyhow, just a suggestion.
For us, the toughest year was my oldest at age 3. LOTS of testing. On my most difficult days, Jon was so good about reminding me that "we deal with this now so we won't have to when he's 13." In retrospect (he's turning 13 this year), I'm so grateful we did what we did....I think it resulted in happier kids and happier parents overall. It's tough to be consistent, but SO important. You'll reap big rewards in the future. Be encouraged!
Your hearts are so wonderful. Mia will have that heart in her as well. "more is caught than taught." Keep loving her well, loving each other well, and loving God and HIS people well.... all will turn out well. :)
My grandmother used to tell me, "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is OLD he will not depart from it.... but when he's young he will!" That used to help me a lot. Right now you are in a season of sewing in Mia's life. The reaping will come much later.
Love you Megan!
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