Cindy on Young Families
Do I need to link to her? Just add her to your RSS feed. :)
I have become increasingly aware of how young some of y’all are. Much of my email comes from mothers with several toddlers and no older children. There is an interesting fact about older mothers: They forget a lot. It’s a blessing and a curse. I suppose it keeps us from being insufferable know-it-alls but sometimes it would be nice to have a few helpful hints to share.
[...]
It may be some comfort to some of you that I never spent time making little sand-tables or setting up water play or other creative things with my children. I left the creative play to their imaginations and the only thing I can say is that perhaps their imaginations are too good now. When all is said and done my children had a mother who read to them.
[...]
I know you are all wondering: What do you do with your toddlers while you homeschool? I still haven’t found a satisfactory answer to that question. Give them food is the closest thing to helpful that I can think of
[...]
With toddlers you just muddle through. Life with toddlers is called muddling through. But then again you get to go to bed every night telling your husband funny toddler stories. The stupid things your toddler will do when he is a teenager will not have that ring of humor.
Other moms with older families now are also chiming in in her comments section.
That’s why I’m blogging now. I have by no means figured it all out, but we make due fairly well and I know in 10 years when my siblings or other young moms ask I won’t have a clue what I did without a 10-year-old. :)
Right now I’m reading blogs and email and browsing the ‘net and my boys are making some sort of collection in the port-a-crib which is still up from last weekend for a friend. Jaeger is carrying the trash can (which only has paper garbage in it), contemplating adding it to their collection. Hans is now encouraging him to empty it into a large sterilite container. The deed is done. But they are occupying one another and being “fire guys,” ducks, baseball guys, and who knows what else, they are receiving cursory supervision so they don’t get into arguments or hurt themselves too badly, and I am wasting time in relative peace. And now there’s paper all over the office. But they will pick it up before Daddy gets home. I don’t put away their messes. Ask my siblings. I can get pretty stubborn about not putting away someone else’s things. :) I’ve been practicing supervising others’ labor since I was 10 and Geoff was 8 and Lanie was 6. I figured they were my crew. Now I’ve got a crew of a 4-year-old and 2-year-old and it’s just as effective, really, because Hans and Jaeger obey me better than Geoff and Lanie did. :)
How one manages who hasn’t been practicing being in charge since they were 10? I really don’t know that. :)
