San Diego Living
in Must Be Nice on July 8, 2016
Greetings to all of you out in Cyberville! I trust that your summers are in full swing and off to a roaring start. Hopefully your summer has been less eventful than mine. Thus far, we have seen an orthopaedic for a broken ankle and made a middle of the night emergency room run for a ruptured ear drum/concussion from a wake boarding accident…welcome to my life.
For the past week, I have been missing a kid. Well, technically she’s not missing. I know where she is…she’s just not been at my house. Can I please tell you how drastically the dynamic changes when you are down one kid? The noise level in and of itself is fantastic. Last Sunday, my hubster and I put our sweet baby girl on a cross-country flight alone to California to visit my three sisters and my parents. Some of y’all reading this are already laughing because you know how well I fly–NOT–so how could I possibly put my child on a plane alone??!!
Simple. None of my children inherited my neuroses about flying. Praise the Lord.
Emma has been having the time of her life. She has been the center of attention…which anyone reading this with girls at home, know that girls prefer to be the center of attention at all times. However, with other siblings, this is not always doable.
She has been Yolo boarding…and hiking…and shopping with my baby sister, who quite honestly could medal for gold at the Olympics, if shopping were a sport. She even attended a Selena Gomez concert–thanks to my new brother-in-law, who surprised her (and two of my sisters) with tickets!
So why am I telling you all of this? A couple of reasons…take a minute and seriously think, and I do mean think about the way you parent your child(ren). What kind of parent are you? Do you hover constantly? Are you always nearby? Do you give them enough space to make their own mistakes?
You see, I would like to think that I am this amazing Mom who is the perfect balance of cool and strict, and is raising perfectly mixed humans who are going to grow up into the next generation of movers and shakers that will eventually change the world and create world peace. But, on the other hand, I’m fairly certain I am a Disney Princess…so my reality may be a bit skewed. We all know from some of my previous posts…I am not cool, nor do I have all of my s@!t together.
So, what’s my point?
Our kids are different when they are not around us.
My mother figured this out. I realize that not everyone has a place they can send their kids. I happen to live about 1300 miles away from my family. My parents and my sisters really enjoy having my kids in the summer. Of course, they can only handle them one-at-a-time, but hey, that’s okay too! In families with multiple kiddos, some special alone time, goes a long, long way. My kids get that in the summer with their aunts.
If you cannot send your kids to your parents or to your own siblings, perhaps they can come to you, and then you and your spouse can leave for a few days. Trust me when I tell you, your kids will benefit greatly by not having you around all the time. They will be okay. Your time away from them will give you time to decompress and regroup. You will be a better parent for it. And it will give them some new experiences.
One final thought, please do not wait until your kids are out of the house to re-connect with your spouse. Twenty-plus years is a long time to wait for a date. Our kids learn more by what the see, than by what we tell them. Show them what love is. Ship them off to Granny’s house!! That, my friends is LOVE!
Here’s hoping your day is filled with ADVENTURE!
-Dallas
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