As parents of young children we often feel a whole host of emotions on a daily basis. The swing between these emotions is constant; happy, sad, frustrated, neglected, downtrodden, blessed, numb and many more all brought about by our own choices. We chose to breed thus we are the cause of this rollercoaster even though we like to blame our little terrors. I personally am still going to blame the girls for a long time. At least until they figure out that it was us who chose to produce them and not some accident. Well with Eden accident might be slightly more applicable as we conceived about six weeks before we were going to officially start trying.
One thing that we must not forget to appreciate is that we have the ability to help our little ones experience a host of emotions on their journeys. Whilst they are young, appreciate the fact that you can easily help them experience intense moments of awe. This ability will diminish exponentially as they grow older and wiser; not sure if wiser is the correct adjective. Whilst they are still ignorant of so many things in this world use it to your advantage because you can bet your retirement on the fact that when they are teenagers the tables will turn.
I look at my two girls and the ability to amaze them brings me so much pleasure. Last night Bella drew a picture for me. She left it lying next to my work bag presumably so that I would discover it in the morning. I didn't know about this until Julia told me that I must not forget the picture. I looked at it and discovered that she had traced her hand. I placed the folded piece of paper back where I had found it.
This morning Bella told me that she had left a picture for me by my bag. I seized my opportunity to help her experience some awe. Instead of going over to the picture and pretending never to have seen it before, I looked at her and said that I can guess what she drew. I looked at her intently and placed my fingers against my temples and then said that I see shapes that go up and down and have round ends. I then dropped my fingers looked at her wide eyed and said "You drew your hand!" The look on her face was priceless. She could not believe that I had guessed what she had drawn for me.
At the moment Bella is rather in awe of her parents ability to know things that they should not know. As it goes with this time of year, Bella is participating in a Christmas concert with her class in a few weeks time. Thus the children are spending a lot of time practising the songs that they are going to be singing. We suspect that the children have been told not to tell us what they are singing but I am sure the teachers knew that the kids suck at keeping secrets.
The other night Bella told Julia that she didn't want a bedtime story, she would rather practise one of her Christmas songs with Julia. The song that she wanted to practise was 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas', who would have guessed that they would sing this. After a few renditions Julia says "Lets try another song," and breaks into a screeching version of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'. Bella was floored. She wanted to know how on earth Mommy knew what one of the other songs that they had been practising was. She was very impressed with her mother indeed.
Not to be out done, I asked Bella in the morning if I might be permitted a chance to tell her what the third song her class would be singing was. As we are an overly religious country it didn't take a genius to figure out what the third song will more than likely be. I took a calculated guess and broke into a melodic interpretation of 'Silent Night.' Once again we had a very suitably impressed four year old in our midst. As they get older you to put more effort into creating the awe.
With Eden on the other hand it is much easier. At the moment simple things inspire awe in our youngest. One of my favourite ways is to wait until I have a suitable amount of flatulence on board and then to politely ask her to pull my finger. The problem with this is she is so impressed that she immediately wants to pull my finger again, but alas the trick doesn't work like that. Equally impressive to young Eden is my ability to fall asleep immediately if she puts her dummy in my mouth. Of course the opposite works, in that I will wake up as soon as she takes it out. She will even use the dummy trick if she comes through and finds me lying on the bed 'sleeping'. She will then get her dummy and force it into my mouth and pull it out at once knowing that I will instantly wake up.
As much as you want to inflict the same psychological pain and torture that they cause us, do take time to inspire awe in your little ones while you can. If fuels their imaginations and the belief that they live in a world full of magic and impossible outcomes. All too soon our harsh cruel world will drum this out of them and it is always a wonderful thing to be someone's hero, even if it is only for a second...
No comments:
Post a Comment