Recently, a first time mom-friend of mines was expressing that her one year old was yelling at the top of her lungs “for fun” and would laugh as soon as she came in the room. When I assured her that it was normal/nothing to worry about, she wondered aloud why there wasn’t a book that let you know things like that happened. Honestly, it would be impossible for any one book to cover everything that each kid will do, because every kid is so unique.
That made me think about the things from my week that I have to remind myself is normal/okay…
-It’s normal/okay that Michael has been sick (and got the rest of the family sick!) for the last five days. Since he was sick, I stopped by Michael’s school on Friday to pick up his homework for the weekend. Both his teacher and the school director said that I should expect for him to be sick a lot this first year of being in a group setting of kids. His teacher said she was sick all the time the first year that she taught. She gave me a couple of good practicals – wash his hands a lot; teach him not to get so close to the other kids so that he’s not breathing in their germs and get the flu shot. I think that the first two tips are easier for adults to do than kids though…I don’t want Michael to become obsessive about germs.
-It’s normal/okay that my kids have better manners than I do at times. That means that my husband and I are raising them right! What brought this to mind is that we were celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday on Saturday. When it was time for dessert, all of us adults were just going to cut the cake and eat it. However, we hear this little voice (Michael’s) behind us starting to sing…”Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You…” Of course, we all looked at each other and hurriedly joined in the song. Later, on the way home, I sneezed and Sean immediately said “Bless You”. I looked over at my husband who was driving and he just shook his head…Sean beats us both to the “bless you” many times!
-It’s okay that my husband (usually) has a more sober estimate of how things will work out than I do. For instance, I’m working on my holiday toy guide. In my mind, I was under the delusion that I would let my sons test some of the samples and then give them away or put them away until Christmas. My husband was like, “Yeah, right. You know that you’re the soft touch.” Well yesterday, I received the Hulk Smash hands. Even before I finished opening the box, Michael was jumping up and down yelling “Hulk Smash!” while Sean kept saying “Wow”. They both then proceeded to try to “Hulk Smash”/attack me with the hands. Very cute! There’s no way that I’m getting that toy back…
Overall, what I’ve learned/am constantly learning is that in the grand scheme of things, most day to day things are normal/okay. (To keep it all in perspective, I’m just grateful that we weren’t in the middle of a hurricane/a Wall Street crisis/ etc…)
(To see what other moms around the web are “tackling” today visit Tackle it Tuesday).