The daylight is streaming in later and later and so spring cleaning has commenced.
Ira helped set up a racetrack and stadium for the big race.
And the hurdles. I put an end to the pole vaulting competition.... "maybe next week" we agreed.
something has definitely shifted between ira and i.
I read continuum concept when she was 3 months old, it revolutionized where I was headed as a parent then. I recently started reading "you are your child's first teacher" with a group of lovely ladies at MDC.
It is doing much for me in ira's preschool years as the continuum concept did in her infant stage.
I cannot quite explain it either. NOthing really has changed in practice. But it reminded me that I have set out to raise her in her own way. On her own path. With her as my teacher and guide. I follow her. NOT in the sense that she was the "leader"or that I chase her around searching her little eyes for what her next whim may be. She is my teacher in the way that I believe that she is an individual, that all children are, and that none of them are going to fit any mold, or timeframe in any more of a standardized way than any birth will fit a standardized protocol that a hospital may put in place.
And just like with birth in a hospital, the natural process is interrupted by even the tiniest, most well meaning intervention. Even more so when that intervention is more for our own needs than for the needs of the person living the event. Birth, childhood, adolescence.... who knows best for any age.
I think the person living that life knows best, and it is most wise for us to sit back and watch, observe, listen, and only intervene when safety is involved or it is requested.
Which isnt necessarily AT ALL what this book is saying.
I am only to chapter 3.
I am just reflecting after a few passages in these first few chapters sparked a little of the passion for childhood preservation I had once felt.
But sometime after liv was born, I think I started maybe thinking ira was ready for more, she seemed so BIG, there standing next to this teeny tiny baby. She seemed so grown up.
This book couldnt have come at a better time in our life.
It reminded me, that while she is so big in comparison to liv, she is still so small compared to me.
Even the age difference of a year is vast in these early years, and her sensitivity deserves protection. Her influences imprint on her in ways that I may not understand anymore.
She is much more observant than most would credit a three and a half year old. More observant than I for sure.
so, maybe it is just that I am seeing her clearly. or, maybe she has felt a difference in my voice....
whatever it is, we are laughing, smiling, joking through the moments of our days.
I caught this beautiful moment with my camera almost by accident.
Ira said, "look, mama, liv can stand on her own. LIV- can you do this?"
sisters.
its all so INSPIRING isnt it?
