Being in the moment

One of the key factors of enjoying lucky dip days.  Being present in the here and now, trying not to be caught up in what needs to be done, what happened an hour ago, what you are doing tomorrow.  Sure, you need  to be aware of these things (although letting go of the past is another lesson for another post), but hen they start to dominate your thinking and being is when it becomes frustrating to deal with nearly 4 year olds and 1 year olds.

Small people this age live in the now.  Ianto is starting to get  a sense of time and how it works, but still lives predominately in the now.  Tomorrow is creating some fun conversations around here because of this tendency!  It is a lot easier to tell him what day things are happening on rather than saying such and such is happening tomorrow- tomorrow never comes!  Anouke is all about the now - she is able to wait for things a bit, but generally speaking she has no idea of 'then'.

If we as adults let go of 'then' and 'next' and most especially 'should', parenting in general - and especially solo parenting - becomes a lot easier.  Because really, there are not that many things that HAVE to be done RIGHT NOW.  I discovered this yesterday - big plans were made in the morning and by 8 am they were all out the window - the small people were still asleep!  So I decided to let it all go.  I decided that there was only one thing that HAD to be done at some point in the day, and that was the grocery shopping (pretty much literally nothing left in the cupboard lol!).  So when Anouke woke up she and I wandered out the the lounge room and pottered about, she played with the dolls house, we read a story, I checked my blogs, we had a bit of breakfast...  When Ianto woke up later we got dressed and did the shopping.  Actually, Anouke and I got dressed, Ianto didn't put any clothes on until we got to the supermarket, and then it was only trousers.  Once we got home, the shopping sat unpacked in the kitchen for a good hour or so until the small ones were happy and settled.  And to be honest, I can't remember how the rest of the day went!  I know I got a chicken roasted (should get quite a few meals out of it too!) and made a chocolate cake (that flopped - mixed it with the left over ice cream from christmas for treats later on) and brownies, but that is about it.  Late in the afternoon Dad came over to mow the lawn which means stopping everything to watch - both Ianto and Anouke love watching the mowing, partly because it is a machine that makes noise, and partly because they adore Grandad :).

I had intended to get some washing done, tidy up the playroom and shift some furniture around, and generally tidy up, but you know what?  It will all be there today, and tomorrow, and the next day.  And that is fine, because the work will wait while I show my children a rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait for me to finish the work.

So live in the moment, enjoy your small people while they are small.  Take advantage of every offered kiss, cuddle, grin and tickle opportunity.  Let go of the stuff that will wait.  It will keep you sane, your small people happy and make you life richer.