I like my kids (99.9% of the time)
I was pondering last night - does everyone like their kids? I mean, I know that all parents love their children like crazy, but do they all like their kids? Do all parents think that if they were in a room full of people, including their own children (pretend the children are grownup versions of themselves), they would choose to hang out and converse with their kids because they think that they are just good people and they enjoy their company? Because I totally would. And I find this exhilerating. That I brought into the world, three such amazing people that I want to hang out with them all the time. Each of my three children have completely different personalities and I constantly find each one of them fascinating.
Max is so smart and clever and funny. When he was 20 months old, he was eating a picnic dinner in his high chair on my mom's patio. He picked up his fork and hid it under the table and then met each person's eye around the table and with a twinkle in said eye asked, "Whereitgo?" On Wednesday, we picked Ryann up from daycare and one of the other moms asked me to stand by her car and watch her daughter and niece while she ran in to pick up her other daughter, so she didn't have to unstrap the little girls. I agreed and since I was parked directly across the lot from her, offered to Max and Ryann that they could go get in the car and buckle in while we waited. Ryann declined - she wanted to stay and talk to the little girls through the car window. But Max skipped to the van and hopped in. It must have been during this time that he devised his little trick. After our short trip home, I pulled into the driveway and reached into the little cubby where the garage door opener resides. I kept reaching and reaching, way back in there but didn't feel it(!) and as I kept feeling around, the garage door began to open. I exclaimed, partly under my breath, "What on earth?!" and then I heard Max bust out laughing. I looked in the rear view mirror and he was triumphantly waving the garage door opener above his head. He cackled out, "Ha! You thought the door opened by magic!"
Ryann is still my little rhinoceros dreamer. When I picked her up from preschool this Wednesday, her teacher said to me, "We just love having Ryann here. She is such a sweet caretaker". Ryann is the first one of the kids to pipe up and say things like, "Oh Mom, the new couch is so beautiful" or "Mom, you look really pretty today." Ryann is tougher then I was as a young child (when she falls down, more often then not she jumps back up and gasps, "I'm okay!") but she is a lot like me in that she loves babies and puppies. She looks at other people's babies or even pictures of their babies and coos, "Oh, he/she is so cute!" Lately, she's been pretending that she is either a kitten or a puppy and it is my role to buy her from the pet store and then care for her. At Christmas, she would not put my grandparent's new miniature poodle puppy, Bernie, down.
Adam is my sweet, self-sufficient young man. Out of all three babies, he started giving me unsolicited hugs and kisses at the youngest age. He has been helping pick up toys since he was about 14 months old. When his big brother and sister finish their bedtime snacks, he is very serious about collecting all three multi-colored plastic bowls and transporting them to the kitchen where he lobs them, on tiptoe, into the sink. When Ryann can't find her favorite stuffed friend, Ellie, she walks around the house bellowing, "Ellie?!, Ellie?!, Ellie?!, Ellie?!" and Adam feels he must help his big sis find her buddy, so he toddles around yelling, "Eh-wee! Eh-wee! Eh-wee!" Sometimes when Adam is off on his own somewhere and it's been quiet for a bit too long so I go to check to make sure all is ok, he's into trouble but more often than not, he's found himself an interesting book to look at or a toy to play with and is happily entertaining himself. He's even starting dressing himself in his outerwear in the morning like his big brother and sister, when asked. He put on his own hat and scarf the other day and was trying, valiantly, to put on his own "mee-mees" (mittens) when I peeked in the room to check on them.
Will this ever wear off?! This love affair (like affair?) I have with my children? This must be why God made adolescence (and naughty, exasperating toddler and preschooler behavior). That must be the time when we don't like our kids quite so much. That way we can start loosening the apron strings so it won't be quite so painful when our kids grow up and away and leave us. (I also firmly believe that God created the last few weeks of pregnancy so that we women end up being excited about going through several grueling hours of labor to push the enormous baby lodged inside of us, out.)
Max is so smart and clever and funny. When he was 20 months old, he was eating a picnic dinner in his high chair on my mom's patio. He picked up his fork and hid it under the table and then met each person's eye around the table and with a twinkle in said eye asked, "Whereitgo?" On Wednesday, we picked Ryann up from daycare and one of the other moms asked me to stand by her car and watch her daughter and niece while she ran in to pick up her other daughter, so she didn't have to unstrap the little girls. I agreed and since I was parked directly across the lot from her, offered to Max and Ryann that they could go get in the car and buckle in while we waited. Ryann declined - she wanted to stay and talk to the little girls through the car window. But Max skipped to the van and hopped in. It must have been during this time that he devised his little trick. After our short trip home, I pulled into the driveway and reached into the little cubby where the garage door opener resides. I kept reaching and reaching, way back in there but didn't feel it(!) and as I kept feeling around, the garage door began to open. I exclaimed, partly under my breath, "What on earth?!" and then I heard Max bust out laughing. I looked in the rear view mirror and he was triumphantly waving the garage door opener above his head. He cackled out, "Ha! You thought the door opened by magic!"
Ryann is still my little rhinoceros dreamer. When I picked her up from preschool this Wednesday, her teacher said to me, "We just love having Ryann here. She is such a sweet caretaker". Ryann is the first one of the kids to pipe up and say things like, "Oh Mom, the new couch is so beautiful" or "Mom, you look really pretty today." Ryann is tougher then I was as a young child (when she falls down, more often then not she jumps back up and gasps, "I'm okay!") but she is a lot like me in that she loves babies and puppies. She looks at other people's babies or even pictures of their babies and coos, "Oh, he/she is so cute!" Lately, she's been pretending that she is either a kitten or a puppy and it is my role to buy her from the pet store and then care for her. At Christmas, she would not put my grandparent's new miniature poodle puppy, Bernie, down.
Adam is my sweet, self-sufficient young man. Out of all three babies, he started giving me unsolicited hugs and kisses at the youngest age. He has been helping pick up toys since he was about 14 months old. When his big brother and sister finish their bedtime snacks, he is very serious about collecting all three multi-colored plastic bowls and transporting them to the kitchen where he lobs them, on tiptoe, into the sink. When Ryann can't find her favorite stuffed friend, Ellie, she walks around the house bellowing, "Ellie?!, Ellie?!, Ellie?!, Ellie?!" and Adam feels he must help his big sis find her buddy, so he toddles around yelling, "Eh-wee! Eh-wee! Eh-wee!" Sometimes when Adam is off on his own somewhere and it's been quiet for a bit too long so I go to check to make sure all is ok, he's into trouble but more often than not, he's found himself an interesting book to look at or a toy to play with and is happily entertaining himself. He's even starting dressing himself in his outerwear in the morning like his big brother and sister, when asked. He put on his own hat and scarf the other day and was trying, valiantly, to put on his own "mee-mees" (mittens) when I peeked in the room to check on them.
Will this ever wear off?! This love affair (like affair?) I have with my children? This must be why God made adolescence (and naughty, exasperating toddler and preschooler behavior). That must be the time when we don't like our kids quite so much. That way we can start loosening the apron strings so it won't be quite so painful when our kids grow up and away and leave us. (I also firmly believe that God created the last few weeks of pregnancy so that we women end up being excited about going through several grueling hours of labor to push the enormous baby lodged inside of us, out.)
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