Modern Mommie

Just finished reading, "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five" by John Medina.  I really enjoyed it and learned a few things that I'd like to put into practice.

Empathy:   This is something that does not come easily to me, and yet it is the main theme of this book.  Parents need to have empathy and teach their children how to be empathic.  It is the foundation for building lasting friendships (which is the main predictor of happiness).  To develop an empathy reflex, 1. Label the emotion, 2. Guess where it came from.  This helps you understand the action/emotion of others.

Label Emotions:  Explain emotions to children and help them understand what they are feeling.  This will help them act better when they have intense emotions.  Verbalizing emotions has a calming affect.

Be Present:  Parents must spend face time with their babies to encourage brain development.  They need to be responsive and engaged in their lives.  Parenting is very hands-on and messy!  It's okay to make mistakes, but love your kids and be active in their lives.  If you pay attention to their emotional needs and development, you will be less surprised as they change.  This also gets parents into a predictive mode, instead of reactive.

Praise Effort:  To foster a learning brain, praise the effort and not only the result.  This will encourage kids to try harder.

Read Together:  This seems to be the way to get a "smart" baby.  Talk somewhere near 2100 words per hour, and read together.  Babies learn from human interaction more than they do from a TV or CD player.  Along this line of thinking, it's better to have your child take music lessons than to play them music.  (He recommends 10 yrs of lessons!)

Really, if I want a happy and successful child, I need to help her become a good friend.

April 2003, I bought my first new car.  It was amazing.  Black, V6, Sun Roof, Grey Leather seats...it hugged corners and flew around town.  I was in love.  My life seemed to be on a fast track.  I was engaged to the most wonderful man in the world, I was working on a new product launch for GM, it was springtime and I was on top of the world.

Fast forward to the present.  I am now married to the most wonderful man in the world, we have the most amazing daughter and it is once again springtime and this year is filled with possibilities.  But...this week we traded in the Grand Prix for a .... Buick....Minivan.

I knew that one day we would sell the Grand Prix and I would get a more "family-friendly" vehicle, but the shroud of Mommie-hood covered me up this week.  I feel like very little of who I was in the spring of 2003 is still here.  My life is not on a fast track, I am staying home, clipping coupons, reading parenting books, and wondering what to cook for supper.  I am now in the slow lane.

This is the life I chose, the life I want to have and I am so grateful to have, but that still didn't keep me from crying on the way to buy the minivan.  I love being in the slow lane right now, watching my daughter grow up and know that being a stay at home mom is the best job for me.  I just need some time adjust to this new life and selling the Grand Prix hit me hard.  I will never be that wide-eyed, optimistic girl I was...I will forever now be a Mommie. 

Good bye Grand Prix I will miss you and all the youth you represent.

All I want is to have one coherent thought! My new Mommie brain is stuck in a fog of feeding, comforting, and diapering.  Even as I watch the news about the earthquake in Japan, my prayer is only "God Please".  It is hard to articulate anything in words right now.  Hopefully this, like all things, will pass.  One look at her and I know the fog is okay for now.

No sleep last night, and it wasn't Aislie's fault!  She slept like an angel while I laid in bed wide awake.  I wasn't thinking about anything in particular. Songs floated around in my brain, along with medical billing frustrations, and excitment about an offer we put on a house, but I don't think it was any of those things keeping me awake.

Earlier in the day I was thinking about some of the tragedies in my life and I was feeling completely grateful.  God has been there with me every step of the way and by His grace I have come out the other side closer to Him.  What a blessing to know God, and His Peace.  He is always there ready to listen; I struggle to remember.

God speaks during quite times, and often in the wee-small hours of the morning.  Are you listening to Him?

Today is a day for living.  Make the most of it for no one knows what tomorrow holds.  There is always laundry to be done, toys to pick up and bills to be paid.  Let the stress of today wash off, and live in the now.  Life, love, joy, it's happening right now.  Soak it up while it is here!