It was cookie day yesterday. We made many gingerbread people. And many sugar cookie mittens, trees, and stars.
We’re now in a bit of a sugar induced fog. But don’t get us wrong we’re not complaining!
Cookie Day signals the beginning of our celebration. Today is Cinnamon Roll Day. You are jealous aren’t you? Wish we could share!!
Happy Baking to you all!
We traveled this weekend and had nice visits with several family members. But what I am going to rehash is meant more to remind me that parenting is not an exact science.
This weekend for the most part the boys had a good time. They played and generally were just a tad over excited but who wouldn’t be with the first round of Christmas visits. The boys were having a good time right up until the moment my dear husband took the bionicles apart. I’m going to take a side tangent here and say that I LOVE lego products. Except these. I hate these. They are incredibly fragile and parts are often breaking and cracking. My youngest just accepts that his penchant for taking them apart results in broken bionicles. My oldest never takes them apart.
Read that last sentence again: My oldest never takes them apart.
Now read what set off an upset bigger than what we’ve seen in months: my dear husband took the bionicles apart.
BOOM.
In seconds my oldest morphed from the sweet child playing with his remote helicopter to a raging, screaming and tremendously upset child. My husband was just a little shell shocked. And the target of all the venting. I sent him upstairs. Was it right? I don’t know.
Because to be honest I didn’t know what was RIGHT at all.
In the following few minutes I fumbled my way through talking down this angry child. Because he can’t hear much of anything when he’s that mad.
I understand both sides of the argument:
Daddy says time to go. Starts packing up and casually asks for help. Child doesn’t want to help. Dad gets frustrated and packs up stuff himself.
Child sees Daddy has taken apart toy that NEVER comes apart. Knows toy breaks easily. Freaks out and gets mad.
Neither one is really wrong and unfortunately neither one is ALL right. And I’m in the middle. Stuck trying to run that line down the middle of my husband and son. I don’t fully disagree with my son but I don’t approve of his actions. I don’t fully disagree with my husband but I want just a little more patience and understanding from him.
The boy yelled. I yelled. I yelled at the boy and I yelled at the Dad.
Another side tangent. Sometimes trying to keep my husband informed of the day to day things is exhausting. I *knew* the oldest never took the bionicles apart. I *saw* my husband putting them in the boxes. I missed the fact he wasn’t squishing them in but actually taking them apart. Sigh. I guess I never communicated how fragile these were because the look on my husband’s face when the boy exploded said he didn’t know.
It was not a proud parenting moment and it was made more so by the fact we weren’t in our own home which means we did all this in front of other people. Nothing makes you take a look at how you did more than having an audience. And in the moment I knew we weren’t doing very well. We fumbled.
But we didn’t crash and burn. That is what I am trying to remember as my brain rehashes the whole scene. We may not have had a shining, blue ribbon moment but we were there. And we were trying.
And trying is sometimes the best I’ve got. Do my best today with the intentions of trying to do better tomorrow.
I’ve been entertaining myself with a preliminary search for a grand piano. We are quite serious about adding a parlor grand to our home but we are not in a hurry. This means that I get to window shop. Lucky for me, I do enjoy that aspect of a significant purchase.
But it has also turned my thoughts to our existing piano. We have an upright that and an early point in my life was purchased brand new. My parents bought it for reasons that are not quite clear to me but fall under that “every house should have a piano” realm of thought.
Lucky for us they had those thoughts. I do not remember a moment of my life without a piano in the house. We always had the ability to sit down and plunk out a tune. There were lessons for some of us. But for the most part we simply enjoyed having the instrument in our home.
That is not the case with my children. Earlier this summer when the boys were practicing their newest pieces, I realized that they play. They PLAY the piano. With a small, budding passion for the music that can be made. They PLAY with a joy and love for the instrument itself. For the sounds and emotions that can be made. Granted in all honesty most of those emotions are kin to a dinosaur stomp and a herd of galloping rhinoceroses. But in the end they are playing as pianists.
Our old piano is now a well loved instrument. It occupies a place of honor in my house and is touched multiple times through out the day. Whenever the mood strikes them both boys can be found tickling out a tune. I have music in my day everyday. Music that is made my the small hands of my boys.
Is it no wonder that sometimes window shopping for a grand feels a bit like a betrayal to our current well loved piano?
