Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Yes Day

It never fails. Every time I decide to release whatever parenting issue I am having at the time and spend one day without judgment or negativity, we have an awesome day. I don't mean that I do some wonderful parenting job. I mean that Pablo chills out about whatever issue was making me nuts.

This morning before Pablo woke up, I gave myself a peptalk. Despite the late (and zany) going to bed last night and Pablo's lack of sleep, I was going to relax about his revived tendency to ignore me, get easily distracted, and other time wasting practices. I knew we had nowhere we needed to go, and nothing we needed to do. In other words, it was a great day to let things be.

He was more interactive with me than he has been in days. He played in a focused way for hours at a time. He listened, if not perfectly, then at a percentage I would gladly accept. I didn't worry about getting him to do things he didn't want to. We even had friends over spur of the moment this afternoon, and he PLAYED with his friend. He was actually more interactive than the friend, and kept chasing the poor guest around asking him to play more, play more! This was such a thrill to see, since at our last play date he barely talked to his buddy. (I do think how well he knows said kids had something to do with it, but still....)

As I look back, I see things I did differently that created space for him to act differently too. Maybe it wasn't magic. Maybe I did this. Maybe.

Yes days are good days.

2 comments:

  1. That is so awesome! And I will say again as I've said many times, what you do, you are incredible at. You are an incredible mama in a way that I don't think most people could or even would aspire to. Your level of mindfullness, of thinking about what you are doing rocks, much like you!

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  2. hi -- just catching up with your latest posts and I have to agree with you about the YES days.

    I went through a phase last month where every other day was a YES day. Simply begin with YES. Say YES to what is happening, and move to make changes from the YES energy.

    An example... I had washed and cleaned some deli containers to reuse at the store. My not quite two-year-old took them off the table and was stomping on them. I wanted to reuse those!

    But the first thing I did was say... "YES! You are stomping on those containers!" and then more quiet... "YES! I want to reuse them." Then I moved to help him stop, much more gently than I otherwise would have.

    Yes days ARE good days. I'm glad you're having them.

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