expectations

I've been thinking about how to modify my ecpectations lately. I've been getting frustrated and angry with the children very easily lately, and I've been trying to see how I could change something in myself so that I could not be so reactive, could respond in a lighter, more productive way than I have been. I had heard that anger is a reaction to unmet expectations; that is, I may somehow expect that Burke will happily eat his dinner, and so when he doesn't, (frequently the case), my expectations are not met and I get angry. I actually frequently use the word 'expect' with the children, rather than the less meaningful 'need'. "I expect you to put your toys away" rather than "I need you to put your toys away" or "You need to put your toys away". 'Expect' seems to demand more results than 'I would like you to...'.

One night last week I was half-watching some comedian, and I thought about humour, and laughter, (and how some parenting advice is to deal with your children with humour), and I realized that in a way humour is about unmet expectations too. A good punchline, or a funny situation is usually because it was unexpected. The comedian is telling a story, and you get to the end and schwoop, they throw in something that you would never have thought of. Situations in every day life can also be like that; (the only examples I can think of are fart situations...) (ok, really I can't think of anything else right now, but watch when you laugh, it's often at the unexpected).

So, now, the big experiment, meditation, work is; can I use the one to help me lighten up in my parenting. I don't think I want to be the parent always clowning around with and cajoling my children, but lately I know I could lighten up my expectation. Still have them, but realize that somehow it's sometimes ok, (or maybe even funny) if they don't get met. I don't know how this all will work yet, I'm still mulling it over.

(oh, and the picture has nothing to do with the post, I just like pictueres in blog posts. This is a new craft I've allowed myself to start.)

Princesses and princes and pirates

It was birthday party time this weekend, and we had a prtty fun time, even if ai couldn't move for the rest of the night. Wow, it was more exhausting than I thought. We had8 children, so we had it in our comlex's common room. It was nice to have a clean, simple space, but the room is really echo-y, so it was really loud in there, especially because we were having a dance party! But the royal siblings had fun, the guests seemed to enjoy themselves, and we had help cleaning up! All good!

Those goofy kids

They're not asleep, just goofing around. Burke loves to be close to Amelia and doing what sha does, and Amelia sometimes allows it, especially if she thinks that I'll think its cute and I'll take a picture. Sometimes she even tells me to come and take a picture. What am I supposed to do? So I take the picture...

funny boy

Playing in the rain,

with spray bottles.

hallowe'en

Here they are, the princes and the helicopter, the royal helicopter of course!

the Princess and the helicopter

I can't beleive it's been almost a month since my last post! Well, here I am, living with a princess and a helicopter. Amelia has been into Princesses for awhile, and I have been doing my best to avoid the commercial di$ney ones. She has seen them of course, in the neighborhood and on her night-time diapers, but otherwise it's been her imagination and a star wand and nice bits of fabric. Until the latest library trip, where our librarian helped us pick a few very nice books. My favourite is a version of beauty and the beast by Jan Brett, so the pictures are rich and beautiful with the best dresses. We also got a retelling of princess furball, (otherwise known as thousand-furs) this is also one of the grimms fairy tales, and is sort of a cinderella story, but this princess is a bit more active in her destiny.

Amelia has been 'being' a princess more often since the new books, and she takes it quite seriously. It affects her behaviour sometimes, she does things right away and even sometimes without asking, and is very kind to her brother when she's a princess. Not a diva princess, but a very kind and respectful princess. (this is part of how I would describe what cinderella's mother told cinderella to be before she died, it's the only way I can justify cinderella letting her family walk all over her). All to say, I'm liking the princess she is becoming. (it's not all the time, not even half the time, she still is a 4.5 year old). Burke even knows to call her pin-sess.

And Burke is into busses, trains and helicopters. Any time he runs anywhere (pretty much any time we're outside, and sometimes inside too) he holds his hand up either over his head, or more usually at his shoulder, with his index finger up, and that's a helicopter. He also loves to talk about them; helicopter on seabus, bus on toot-toot (train), teeter-totter-bus-toot-toot-weeoo-weeoo(firetruck)-seabus-helicopter.

So, we have a helicopter and a princess.