Happy New Year

Happy Wish-Making-Day.  I wish I were more devout, neat, efficient, skinny, attentive, fluent, active and driven.  There, now I don't have to make any stupid resolutions because I have wished for all the attributes I need to accomplish what I think I ought.

And it is clear that I have painted an entirely unrealistic picture of what I should be able to do.

About the day after you discover you are pregnant, the parenthood guilt virus (PGV) begins to attack your frontal lobe.  By the time your child turns three, the PGV will have spread throughout your brain forcing you to agonize over every decision you make.

For instance: media and your child--the shame of letting your child watch media.  The pressure to keep media out of your children's lives is overwhelming.  I find myself justifying any media I allow my children to watch to everyone...and I am pretty sure they don't care.  I really want my children to grow up in a rich environment full of stories and imaginative play.  I want them to feel safe to express themselves, I want them to play outside, I want them to be fascinated by interesting things but, sometimes, they just want to watch Kipper (the dog, the dog with a slipper).

Today we came home after church and played in the yard for two hours.  I pushed them on the swings, Ollie took a nap in the sunshine on our special family picnic quilt, we got the new kite stuck in a tree (sorry, Grammie and PopPop) then went inside to have a family lunch.  Then it got really stormy.  Really, really stormy.  And I STILL felt guilty for being inside.  Then Laine asked to listen to an AUDIOBOOK of Thomas and I felt guilty for not reading to him.  Then he asked for a piece of fudge and I felt guilty that he knows how (incredibly) good fudge is.

So, this year, I am making a wish for myself and for you.  I wish for a cure for PGV.  I wish to play with my children because it delights me and not because I feel like I ought to.  I wish that when I feel grouchy and unimaginative I will be honest with my children and ask them to help me play (it is their job after all).  I wish that every once in a while I will say yes to a movie and watch too.

Happy New-Opportunity-to-Try-Your-Best!