Browsing Tag

letting go of expectations

Daily Life

K’s Dance Recital!

Today was K’s dance recital – and what a helluva day it was! I realized around 11 that K’s dance shoes are in my cupholder in my car… and my car’s in the shop… roughly an hour away. We had to be at the recital at 345 and we were leaving school for the day around 145. There was no way to get to my car in time so we went to 2 different Targets looking for ballet shoes.
       We found something that looked similar enough to ballet shoes and left Target around 230 and still had to go home, change into her leotard, and get back for the recital. We made it with 5 minutes to spare and after a few minutes of walking around in her new shoes, K decide she didn’t want to wear shoes anyways ?. Surprisingly, even though the recital is in a different room than class (which K had a mild meltdown about) and even though her regular teacher was absent today (which K seemed to somehow not notice), and even with no shoes, she went out and did a great job.
       
          When we started this class in September, I had to get special permission for K to start because she wasn’t quite 2 and a half. The next 5 weeks K spent most of her class time sliding around the floor on her belly. I wondered if she was too young, or if I pushed her into it. She always said she was having fun though so we persisted. Halfway through the 5th week, K joined in! And she started loving it! At the start of class, I never for a second thought that by January she would be ready and willing to go out and perform for us. But she totally rocked it and I am so proud! ?

 

Daily Life

On Letting Go of My Expectations

What most of our pictures look like these days . I brought the girls to the Queen Mary today for the first time in maybe a year (and first time for Isabelle!) I thought at almost 3, K would be old enough to learn a little bit about the ship and enjoy looking around more than last time. But both girls enjoyed this phone booth more than anything else!

We spent a solid 20 minutes walking around it, looking inside of it, K wanted to open it and know what it was for… It’s hard for me sometimes when the kids don’t enjoy things the way I think they are SUPPOSED to be enjoyed. (Probably because I’m a control freak …) It’s not the money, because the Queen Mary isn’t that expensive and the kids are free. And it’s not an age thing either – I wasn’t expecting them to sit through lectures on the history of the ship or anything.

But it’s SO HARD for me to just let them be and not steer them towards the next thing to look at, or what I think we should be looking at. I’ve always been a rubric person. I like to plan out how I think things should be and stick to that plan. Actually when my plans fall through I am mildly devastated even if it’s not something I really wanted to do in the first place; it’s because that’s what I expected to do. But I did let the girls hang out around the phone booth for as long as they wanted, even though it made my eye twitch a little while I was itching to move on to the next thing .

Kids have a way of holding up a mirror and you see things about yourself you never noticed before, or maybe noticed but didn’t think it was weird or a problem. But I guess going with the flow, especially when it comes to the kids, is something I need to work on.