Let’s be real, when my sister-in-law, who I love, sent me a link to the sing-a-long microphone she was thinking about giving my girls for Christmas, I had two immediate thoughts:
1. They are going to love it.
2. $hit, that is going to be noisy.
Turns out I was right on both accounts, but what I did not expect was that I would be the one using the microphone… and not to sing.
Blame it on cabin fever, but yesterday I discovered that using the kid’s microphone makes for a great replacement to yelling across the house. I spent more than a little time yesterday evening using it to call up instructions & keep them moving forward on cleaning their rooms without resorting to the nagging holler that usually happens. And it was kinda fun – which kept my humor alive and resulted in me not getting annoyed when they got distracted and I could hear them playing instead of cleaning… even when the cleaning turned to tattling on siblings, we all found some levity in my responding over the microphone in a calm, cool & collected way…
Maybe it was a fluke or maybe we were onto something. I am sur the novelty of the whole thing played into it, but no matter what, cleaning time was actually not torture last night…
It’s got me thinking about the way I respond to the kids and the vibe that creates… one thing definitely holds true – when I stay calm, the parenting goes better. When I allow the frustrations to set in, everything spirals out of control…
I’m learning that I should expect my littles to need me over and over throughout the day… I should be prepared to give instructions more than once… I should appreciate they are only kids and cannot be held to expectations beyond their years… I should know that their misbehavior is not a personal attack on my day… and I should respectthat all these changes to our daily life and emotions hit their tender little hearts just as much or more than they hit my own…
I’m working to daily remind myself what I should be expecting for the day… it looks a lot like starting the day with a gratitude list but instead of listing what I am thankful for (a separate and worthwhile task as well), I am repeating to myself:
My kids are just kids… My kids will need me again and again through the day… My kids will learn behavior through the repetition of my calming repeating the expectations… My kids will fall short. My kids will argue & bicker… My kids will need redirection many times within one day…
And in the same breathe, I remind myself:
My kids learn love through me… My kids mimic the patience I show… My kids gain confidence through the words I speak to them… My kids mirror kindness they have felt from me…
So yeah, currently that silly little microphone serves as my crutch to keep myself in that frame of mind… and in the midst of 24/7 parenting with no end in sight, I will take whatever little crutch I can find…
Oh, and in case you think that I am somehow able togo through those reminders once and rock the day, I had to repeat them to myself at least three times before 9.30AM today…
Like yoga, it’s a practice… we get a little bit better each day…
XOXO
PS: I’ve been loving my NuFace & other coronavirus skin-care splurges… find them here.
comments