Well, it's Monday morning. The first day of Spring, my very favorite season. Sort of surprising, given how the pollen reeks major havoc on my body, but I just can't help but love the season anyway. Sun, green, watching all the flowers start to poke their unsuspecting little leaves out, new sports seasons, and looking forward to the relaxing pace of summer. But lo and behold, today, the first day of Spring, we have a bit of snow! Huh? Yup. Not much. Enough to be pretty, coat the cars and require the ice scraper come out one last time (yes, of course, I pushed it to the very back depths of the closet just last week...grrr). It seems like a bit of a last teaser of snow. Thanks Winter, as if you didn't spend the entire season teasing us with snow. Again.
Granted, three years ago we got totally clobbered with snow. Over. And over. And over. It was a monstrous snow season. We kept telling the kids that they may never see that much snow again in this area. It was crazy. And then each winter since then, we've gotten a mere pittance of the white stuff. And this year has been no different. When we finally got a forecast a few weeks ago for a major incoming storm, you could feel the anticipation in the air. Finally! We were going to have a good 12" of snow! Yippee! And no dice. The temperatures stayed just a bit too warm, so what we got was a big sloshy, wet, mess. Not much fun. For anyone.
I'm hopeful that today's snow will be the end for this snow season. I'm ready to move forward. Start Spring already! John's soccer team played in a pre-season tournament this weekend and his baseball team has their first team meeting tonight. We leave for our annual spring break trip to the Outer Banks in just a few days. It would be nice if Mother Nature could follow along with all of these other signs of spring. And I know it will eventually. Just not on my timeline. That would just be too convenient.
So for today, I'm going to enjoy the beauty of the bushes and grass covered in this (hopefully) last dusting of snow. I'm going to be thankful that the roads are fine and schools weren't even delayed. We can go about our day as normal and appreciate the sights along our way.
As long as it starts to act like Spring sometime soon!
3.18.2013
3.08.2013
Ah ha!
Some days I feel like I'm just slogging through my hectic day, checking things off the to do list, running errands, and generally completing the necessary tasks that must be done to keep our life rolling along smoothly (or as smoothly as humanly possible anyway). Actually, maybe that is most days. If I'm lucky, I get in a conversation with a friend, which always makes the day a bit better. Keeps me grounded. And often reminds me why doing all those things each day is important.
Today, I spoke for just a few minutes to a dear friend that I have known for 20 years and don't talk to nearly enough these days. We are both stay-at-home moms, which we thought would be great - we'll see each other all the time! Right? Nope. We live only about 20 minutes apart, but life is just too crazy. My kids are a bit older than hers, so we're just both slogging through our different routines most of the time.
Anyway, today I got to have a brief chat with her. And it made my heart feel good to reach out and talk to her, even if it was only for about 10 minutes. I miss talking to her more frequently, but it makes me smile every time. We were talking, as we mostly do, about the kids and some of the cute/fun/challenging things going on in their lives these days.
After we got off the phone, I smiled and had an Ah Ha! moment. Because her children are a bit younger than mine, she has frequently had a variety of parenting questions for me, as much of what she may be struggling with I have already been through and we all know how much we value the advice of our mom friends when it comes to getting over tough hurdles. And I am always happy to discuss/advise/encourage/support/listen/and much, much more. Anything I can do to help! Always!
But today somewhere in my brain went "Oh goodness, this situation is so unlike anything we experienced as parents. It is so truly amazing how different each child is. And how important it is to recognize that as each child is different, our parenting style with each child must change as well!"
It is easy when you have more than one child to feel like the approach or strategy that worked for the oldest should clearly work for the subsequent one(s), right? Nope. More often than not, it won't work. Sometimes it only takes a minor modification. If you're lucky. Other times it really takes an entirely different approach. I know this is OFTEN true for my two children. And I OFTEN forget it. And then I get frustrated when it doesn't work and things disintegrate into chaos.
But it isn't always easy to have different approaches for the different children in a family either! One of the frequent complaints from any child (frequently it's my oldest) is "that's not FAIR!" Well, years ago I read in a parenting article the best response to this comment that I've heard and thus use regularly - "FAIR is not always EQUAL."
In an ideal world it would be, but that is definitely not the world I live in and not the world of child rearing as I know it. But sometimes the different approaches work together and we can all live with the un-equalness of it if the result is positive. I think my girlfriend does a better job with her girls of maintaining the flexibility to parent this way than I do. Her daughters are VERY different in many ways and she is an amazing mother to both of their personalities. Maybe it's her teacher background - she can manage a classroom full of different student personalities, and know how best to engage them to be the best students they can be.
Whatever the reason, her flexibility and acceptance of her daughters' differences really struck a chord with me today. I hope she can inspire me to be the best parent I can be for each of my own children as they learn and grow in their own funny, quirky, artistic, creative, crazy ways.
Parenting is such a journey! Not always a smooth one (in fact, almost never), but a wonderful journey nonetheless.
Today, I spoke for just a few minutes to a dear friend that I have known for 20 years and don't talk to nearly enough these days. We are both stay-at-home moms, which we thought would be great - we'll see each other all the time! Right? Nope. We live only about 20 minutes apart, but life is just too crazy. My kids are a bit older than hers, so we're just both slogging through our different routines most of the time.
Anyway, today I got to have a brief chat with her. And it made my heart feel good to reach out and talk to her, even if it was only for about 10 minutes. I miss talking to her more frequently, but it makes me smile every time. We were talking, as we mostly do, about the kids and some of the cute/fun/challenging things going on in their lives these days.
After we got off the phone, I smiled and had an Ah Ha! moment. Because her children are a bit younger than mine, she has frequently had a variety of parenting questions for me, as much of what she may be struggling with I have already been through and we all know how much we value the advice of our mom friends when it comes to getting over tough hurdles. And I am always happy to discuss/advise/encourage/support/listen/and much, much more. Anything I can do to help! Always!
But today somewhere in my brain went "Oh goodness, this situation is so unlike anything we experienced as parents. It is so truly amazing how different each child is. And how important it is to recognize that as each child is different, our parenting style with each child must change as well!"
It is easy when you have more than one child to feel like the approach or strategy that worked for the oldest should clearly work for the subsequent one(s), right? Nope. More often than not, it won't work. Sometimes it only takes a minor modification. If you're lucky. Other times it really takes an entirely different approach. I know this is OFTEN true for my two children. And I OFTEN forget it. And then I get frustrated when it doesn't work and things disintegrate into chaos.
But it isn't always easy to have different approaches for the different children in a family either! One of the frequent complaints from any child (frequently it's my oldest) is "that's not FAIR!" Well, years ago I read in a parenting article the best response to this comment that I've heard and thus use regularly - "FAIR is not always EQUAL."
In an ideal world it would be, but that is definitely not the world I live in and not the world of child rearing as I know it. But sometimes the different approaches work together and we can all live with the un-equalness of it if the result is positive. I think my girlfriend does a better job with her girls of maintaining the flexibility to parent this way than I do. Her daughters are VERY different in many ways and she is an amazing mother to both of their personalities. Maybe it's her teacher background - she can manage a classroom full of different student personalities, and know how best to engage them to be the best students they can be.
Whatever the reason, her flexibility and acceptance of her daughters' differences really struck a chord with me today. I hope she can inspire me to be the best parent I can be for each of my own children as they learn and grow in their own funny, quirky, artistic, creative, crazy ways.
Parenting is such a journey! Not always a smooth one (in fact, almost never), but a wonderful journey nonetheless.
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