Saturday, September 24, 2011

Hangin' with my kid, part II

After I finished my entry yesterday, I realized there are so many things I enjoy doing with Miya. And so I continue yesterday’s post into today.

- Arts and crafts. I absolutely love doing art with my daughter. I love her freedom and the way she does things for the fun of it, not so it will look ‘good’.

I’ve heard that it is very hard for adults to do thing randomly. Brains love patterns – it’s how we learn and make sense of our world. The older we get, the harder it is to stop our brains from imposing patterns on the things we do. It’s also very hard to not form judgements about things. Miya is still too young to be held back by either of these things – so watching her put paint on paper, string beads, apply stickers, etc. is watching complete artistic freedom, pleasure and fun. I love it.

- Going for coffee and a muffin. I spend an inordinate amount of time at coffee shops – they are where I do much of my work as I sit with laptop and latte for hours on end. But every so often I go to the café with my kid, not my computer. We like to find a table by the window. I sip my coffee; she eats a muffin or some other bakery treat.

Lately we’ve been going to a café along a street that is being completely torn up and re-done. Like most toddlers, M is fascinated by large construction trucks. Yesterday we had front-row seats for watching guys pour cement for a new sidewalk. Fun stuff.

- Slowing down. I don’t know how to explain this one exactly, other than that being with a kid makes you move just a little bit slower – to stop and smell the roses, or pluck a dandelion, or pick up a pine cone, or watch a squirrel, or an excavator, or a city bus, or a lady walking a dog...

They say with kids that the nights are long but the years go quickly. Taking my time to slow down with my kid helps me hang on a little longer to these quickly passing years.

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