“The days are long, but the years are short.” ~ The Happiness Project
Looking back on February, this month was exhausting. I did ALL THE THINGS with my kids!
Also, listening to them, I mean really listening, is tough.
It takes time.
(Why is every 3-year-old question so long winded?!)
It takes effort.
(I think I bent over a million times this month to get to their level. Hamstrings are in check.)
It really put life into perspective to not only see things from their level, but actually try and relate to them to understand feelings and issues.
Now, I can’t say that a lot of my actions from this month will carry on throughout the year, because this is an experiment after all. I can NOT be this tired all the time. Plus, even though I made an effort to make my children the center of the universe each and every day, this was a one-time deal.
However, I did learn some things about my own behavior that I plan to work on over time and weave into our daily lives.
Here’s what happened:
February Goals
- Honor Silly Requests
- Listen, observe, respond
- Savor memories
- Go on dates
What I Did
- I honored every single silly and absurd request that came my way. Because honestly, most of them didn’t take any more time to say Yes! Some of my favorites included:
– Giving in to clothing choices. You can’t tell them what to wear every day. As much as it pained me to let my kid out of the house wearing “comfy” clothes, AKA basketball shorts, if he asked I allowed it. You only live once kid.-Parking in special areas. My son tends to want to help me drive so he’ll point to areas of a parking lot and say “Over there, over there!” So this month, each time he pointed I said, “Great idea! That spot looks perfect.” And we would walk from however far it was to our destination.
– At every store there is always a request to “Go in the big cart.” You know the insanely huge one meant for a family of 4 kids at the grocery store, or the racing car shaped cart at Home Depot. This was a ton of fun! However, I can see it having an adverse effect on our daily trips to stores. My son has a memory like a cat and will surely bring this to my attention once February is over and we go back to the regular carts. Drama will ensue.
– Sitting on benches. Sometime at the end of last year my son began stoping at every bench we passed to sit and rest. I thought maybe his legs were tired, but he just loves to watch people (wonder where he gets that from.) So now it’s an official thing. I started a special collection of photos that are just him on benches. It’s really cute and something I think we’ll look back on and laugh at when he’s older. *Update: It is now August and we have close to 50 photos in the Boy and His Bench album
- I made a point to listen. And let me tell you, listening to kids, really listening to every word is painful. Instead of the normal “Uh huh… great…that sounds cool,” that normally exits my mouth when my kid starts talking, I really paid attention to his words. You know what? He has a fantastic memory. He loves re-telling a story of something that happened. He loves rehashing out his favorite part of books. He also loves telling his own stories and that makes the writer in me smile.
- This month I purchased and actually sat down and read part of a book on Parenting. It’s one recommended in The Happiness Project and it’s called How to Talk So Your Kids will Listen and Listen so You Kids Will Talk. The book is written more like a workbook, which is super helpful to be able to read through scenarios. In this book it talks about the value of acknowledging children’s feelings in order to get them to talk or calm down. I tested it out one day in Hobby Lobby. Gabriel was upset because I wouldn’t buy him another car. So I took out my phone and showed him how important it was by writing it down in a notepad app. I call it my Gabriel’s Things list. Every time he feels like he should get something at the store, I stop and add it to the list while making a BIG deal about how I’ll be sure to remember it for next time. It works 99.9% of the time- I’m telling you.
- Over the last few weeks I took the time to watch my kids every few days. Instead of busying myself with cleaning while they played I sat a distance away and watched. It is amazing to see how little people interact with each other and how they deal with situations.
From watching them I noticed these things:
Junie: Dives right into a situation. She doesn’t heed any warning but needs to discover on her own. She is fearless, confident and strong. I am in trouble when she becomes a teenager.
Gabriel: Chooses to observe, then find his place. He’s also becoming more and more of a leader and gives direction to his sister or takes charge in a group of friends. (Wonder where he gets that from?) He’s also very sweet and cares about other people immensely. Before bed one night he said to me, “Mom, remember that time you were sad? When your flowers fell on the ground? It’s ok.”
TEARS.
They are so different these two and I wonder what future kiddos will be like. - Part of this project I am most excited about is preserving memories. I find so much joy in taking photos and jotting down little memories. This month I had it on my list to finally sit down and get some scrapbooks made of our family photos throughout the last few years. It didn’t happen. There are just SO MANY PHOTOS! I’ll keep it in my list and try to get something put together before the end of the year.
- I always see the Uber Moms doing sweet things like writing down their kids likes and dislikes around birthday time and I never started anything like that when Gabriel was a baby. I did however have this great idea to make each child their own memory book. I ordered custom Moleskin notebooks with each of my kids names engraved on the front. Simple, black and classic means I can continue this tradition when we add more kiddos to the family. Im so thrilled to be doing this and can’t wait to write to them on each birthday, half birthday and when something special happens.
- This month I also took my son to the kids theater on a date. We saw a production about a kid who loved to read. But it wasn’t that great. I looked forward to it more than he did I think. We had more fun parking the car downtown and walking across the Lamar bridge, than we did at the actual show. Lesson Learned: Don’t hype things up too much and remember that small things can be big fun for little kids.
What I Learned
- I love being a mom. Way more than I thought I would. It fufils me like nothing else in the world.
- This month was easy. I didn’t have a hard time putting my children first because I do it naturally all the time. I had so much fun and it’s been my favorite month so far.
- I let my kids get away with a lot. Maybe I’m not that tough right now, but I’ll learn to be
- Keeping up with memories consumes me. I can’t go hours without snapping something of my kids or posting to Instagram. I may have a problem. But, I am reminding myself more and more to live in the moment, instead of trying to capture it on camera.
Future Plans
- We have a small poloroid Instax camera that I am dying to do something with. The photos are just so cute and little! I’m sure I will think of project before the end of the year. Maybe a Photo-A-Day or Photo-A-Week or something. But then, where would we put these photos?
- I keep the black memory books on my nightstand so I can write to kids whenever there is a major life event.
- Kids say the most ridiculous things. We started this informal quote jar and I hope to continue it for many years!
One of these days I will get around to creating the photo albums. Chatbooks looks really cool, but I know Shutterfly always does a great job too. - Eventually I’d like to have special dates for both of my kids, not just Gabriel. I’m looking into a Mommy +Me photoshoot for Junie and I later in the year. How fun would that be?!
- I’d like to also male the effort to read more books on parenting and how to guide children as they grow. Like every other parent, I’m only as good as the things I read!
Next month I’m tackling Connection. After dedicating 99% of my time and energy to Juniper the last year, I feel as though I’ve lost all my personal and professional connections. Hopefully I’ll be able to rekindle these in March.
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If you’re new to this blog then you may not know that last year, 2015 was one of the hardest years of my life. I had a great spouse, awesome kids and lucky enough to maintain a work-from-home status, but there was no daily joy, just a lot of stress and small windows of fun. This year I decided to make a change and have embarked on what I’m calling my 2016 Happiness Project, inspired by the book by Gretchen Rubin. I hope you’ll join me and follow along each month as I work through different focus areas of both home and life.
