When did my attitude of Colleen change from being proud and
excited of every little accomplishment to almost dreading what she will come up
with next?
Last night I was re-reading the posts I wrote on Colleen’s
first and second birthdays and was shocked to see how the tone of those posts
were so different from the one I had just posted for her 3rd
birthday (which was posted 2 weeks past her birthday). All of the other posts I had up ON her actual
birthday. Sure, some people will think it’s
no big deal but looking back, what was I doing in the past 2.5 weeks that I
could not take 30 minutes to write down her accomplishments? What had my attention? Most importantly, was it worth it?
Over the last year and a half, I have missed out on so much
of Colleen’s life because of work and school.
For the most part of the last 78 weeks I have missed spending time with
her close to 156 nights. When I decided
to go back to school I knew I would be missing out; I knew that she would build
a closer relationship with her father than me and I hoped that she wouldn't
remember me being gone so much during this time of her life. Now I wonder how different things would be in
our lives had I not been away. Would she
still refuse to go to bed at night or would she have a bedtime routine? Would she still purposefully dump out cereal
on the floor or would she want to help mommy by not making a big huge mess? Perhaps there was really nothing I could do
differently to change the way her little mind works – perhaps it is just the
age of terrible twos and trying threes.
Regardless of how she acts now I need to find a way to
relate to her positively; I need to find common ground with her, even if it is
switching roles every once in a while like we did this past weekend. She took the “mommy” role and made me go lie
down in my bed and close my eyes while she read me a night night story and
rubbed my back.
She loves to have picnics on the floor with her little
plates and cups and REAL food. The last
picnic we had baby oranges of which we had to “Cheers” every slice of orange
before I was able to eat it (I admit, I taught her that one).
She loves to color and I’m sure she would really enjoy me
coloring a picture with her – maybe that way I could keep her on track of
coloring on ONLY the paper and nothing else.
She has this idea that her little desk needs to be colored on to make it
pretty…as well as my floor if not careful.
I have a month off of school until the semester of chaos
begins, so I have 30 days to make up for the time I have missed. I am officially on “Fun Mommy” track and
there may or may not be a lot of lists and planning involved but hey, that’s how
I work.
Me: Colleen, why did you get upset at church today?
Colleen: Because I Love You Mommy and I missed you
AWWW!!! You're going to have a great month together! Don't beat yourself up though; remember it's quality time not quantity time. <3
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