Tuesday
Jan042011
Having the Resolve
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 01:41PM
I'm a Capricorn (a New Year's Day one, in fact), so it will come as no surprise that I like lists. They're not only great for groceries and party planning, they work perfectly on blogs. However, I hate New Year's Resolutions. And those cheesy retrospectives that the local news stations and other insidious sources put us through.
But for parents, sometimes it's good to take stock of the year you've just survived in a retrospective list. We need to calculate our accomplishments as moms and dads, and neatly file those little snapshots of your life in a mental scrapbook. That way, when you're exhausted from some parental exercise and wondering aloud, "Why am I doing this?" those little retrospectives serve to remind you why you do all those things.
Here's a look back on a few parenting milestones for 2010, tossed in with some resolutions, all sewn up in a handy list!
1) Get in the game. We stuffed ourselves with Dodger Dogs and left promptly after the Seventh Inning Stretch. But hey, we made it – and we even found our car again. The Resolution: Make memories. A Broadway musical, even though I don't like musicals. The beach, even if it means spending the next day vacuuming sand out of the car. A Dodger game, even whey the team is not doing that great, is something the kids will remember way into adulthood.
2) Remember the love. This last year, 6-year-old Jack fell hard for all things Star Wars, thus trading his Thomas the Tank trains for his TIE Fighter and beloved Clone Wars jammies. Out with the old; in with the new. The Resolution: Keep a good scrapbook, write down the funny things the kids say, hug the stuffing out of them as often as I can, even when they're bugging me.
3) Get the picture. Kate, at age 10, can now appreciate the subtleties of art, understand the struggles of artists, grasp their vision and their plan. She can learn and visualize and emulate and empathize and soak up the paint and the pain. Jack spent his time at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena obsessed with the electronic gadget that spews forth the guided tour – and the museum offers one that's recorded just for kids. Kate chose the more "adult" versions of the interpretations and hung on every word. The art is knowing that they're both taking away what they like, and to get out of the way of that. The Resolution: Guide them to soak up as much culture as they can squeeze into their little brains. Then, get the heck out of their way and let the glue and paint and sparkles spill.
4) Ditch the list. The irony is not wasted here, believe me. But I do tend to schedule tightly, attempt to keep things in order, follow a regimen and keep to a schedule. So when the kids plead, "Mom, can we sleep outside tonight?" I invariably scrunch up my face in a That Is Not The Plan grimace. But they love it, especially when they wake up in the morning and can hang in their tent, sharing Pop Tarts with the dog. The Resolution: Be more spontaneous, and let the kids do more nutty kid stuff.
5) Stop and smell the flowers. As an adult, it's easy to forget how wondrous the world is. But as we're zooming along from one place to the next, Jack will stop me dead in our tracks to stare at a crack in the sidewalk. Kate will pick up a pretty rock, make a dress for it and build a special home for it to "sleep" next to her on the pillow. The two of them will run INTO the rain instead of recoiling as though acid is being dropped on them, as most of us adults do. The Resolution: Remember to see the world through a child's eyes. Be a little less jaded, Carolyn. The world's a pretty cool place.
Now, onto to the next item on the list.
But for parents, sometimes it's good to take stock of the year you've just survived in a retrospective list. We need to calculate our accomplishments as moms and dads, and neatly file those little snapshots of your life in a mental scrapbook. That way, when you're exhausted from some parental exercise and wondering aloud, "Why am I doing this?" those little retrospectives serve to remind you why you do all those things.
Here's a look back on a few parenting milestones for 2010, tossed in with some resolutions, all sewn up in a handy list!
1) Get in the game. We stuffed ourselves with Dodger Dogs and left promptly after the Seventh Inning Stretch. But hey, we made it – and we even found our car again. The Resolution: Make memories. A Broadway musical, even though I don't like musicals. The beach, even if it means spending the next day vacuuming sand out of the car. A Dodger game, even whey the team is not doing that great, is something the kids will remember way into adulthood.
2) Remember the love. This last year, 6-year-old Jack fell hard for all things Star Wars, thus trading his Thomas the Tank trains for his TIE Fighter and beloved Clone Wars jammies. Out with the old; in with the new. The Resolution: Keep a good scrapbook, write down the funny things the kids say, hug the stuffing out of them as often as I can, even when they're bugging me.
3) Get the picture. Kate, at age 10, can now appreciate the subtleties of art, understand the struggles of artists, grasp their vision and their plan. She can learn and visualize and emulate and empathize and soak up the paint and the pain. Jack spent his time at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena obsessed with the electronic gadget that spews forth the guided tour – and the museum offers one that's recorded just for kids. Kate chose the more "adult" versions of the interpretations and hung on every word. The art is knowing that they're both taking away what they like, and to get out of the way of that. The Resolution: Guide them to soak up as much culture as they can squeeze into their little brains. Then, get the heck out of their way and let the glue and paint and sparkles spill.
4) Ditch the list. The irony is not wasted here, believe me. But I do tend to schedule tightly, attempt to keep things in order, follow a regimen and keep to a schedule. So when the kids plead, "Mom, can we sleep outside tonight?" I invariably scrunch up my face in a That Is Not The Plan grimace. But they love it, especially when they wake up in the morning and can hang in their tent, sharing Pop Tarts with the dog. The Resolution: Be more spontaneous, and let the kids do more nutty kid stuff.
5) Stop and smell the flowers. As an adult, it's easy to forget how wondrous the world is. But as we're zooming along from one place to the next, Jack will stop me dead in our tracks to stare at a crack in the sidewalk. Kate will pick up a pretty rock, make a dress for it and build a special home for it to "sleep" next to her on the pillow. The two of them will run INTO the rain instead of recoiling as though acid is being dropped on them, as most of us adults do. The Resolution: Remember to see the world through a child's eyes. Be a little less jaded, Carolyn. The world's a pretty cool place.
Now, onto to the next item on the list.