The Last Time

Leave a comment September 8, 2015 drworobec

Well, we survived our move. Today’s post was written at my desk, looking out an upstairs window into my new front yard. Life is good. And yes, I still have this:

Today is the first day of school for many of you. A shift in routine from the lazy, hazy days of Summer. Back to alarm clocks and getting-out-the-door and packing lunches. It’s back to routine for us at Burlington Sports & Spine Clinic too. Regular hours for practitioners and staff and regular schedules for patient appointments. Give us a call at 289-351-0301 to get back on track with your treatments.

My six-year-old son starts Grade One today, so there’s a subtle turning of the page in my house (and a whole lotta tears; all mine, not his). It’s caused me to be very reflective on how exponentially fast the past six years have gone. It was not that long ago I brought him home and held him in my I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing arms, and here I go, dropping him off to Grade 1. So to all of the new parents with young children, not yet involved the back-to-school rush, who are feeling like the days are long but the moments are short, have a read, cuz this one is for you:

The Last Time
~Author Unknown

From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,
you will never be the same.
You might long for the person you were before,
When you had freedom and time,
And nothing in particular to worry about.
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
And days will run into days that are exactly the same,
Full of feeding and burping,
Whining and fighting,
Naps, or lack of naps. It might seem like a never-ending cycle.

But don’t forget…
There is a last time for everything.

There will come a time when you will feed your baby
for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.
One day you will carry them on your hip,
then set them down,
And never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
Then never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
And it will be the last night you ever wake for this.
One afternoon you will sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’
and do all the actions,
Then you’ll never sing that song again.
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,
the next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your
last dirty face.
They will one day run to you with arms raised,
for the very last time.

The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time
until there are no more times, and even then,
it will take you a while to realize.

So while you are living in these times,
remember there are only so many of them and
when they are gone,
you will yearn for just one more day of them

For one last time.

“Please try not to spill it”

Leave a comment June 9, 2015 drworobec

“Please try not to spill it.” These words have come out of my mouth many times over the years, and I’m going to change that immediately. Here’s why:

Because confidence.
Because self-worth.
Because who has time to care about messes?

I have two impressionable little people under my care, and I think my most important job is to make sure that they believe in themselves. In their self-worth. In their abilities. In their importance.

“Please try not to spill it.”

The last time I said this, my newly three-year-old was carrying her plate from the kitchen counter to the table for lunch. This is a skill she’s just learning- to balance a plate of food while walking. She’s graduating from toddler to kid, and is starting to help out around the house with the little things she’s able to do. Expectations for my kids are age-appropriate, but when she sees her six-year-old brother doing things, she wants to be a big kid too. And I want to foster that.

“Please try not to spill it,” I said, as I passed her the plate. And I saw her hesitate. Just a little stutter-step, just a little pause, just a little self-doubt….. that I’d planted with my comment. My heart broke into a million pieces. I saw it happen: right before my eyes her mind shifted from the confident “I’m-a-big-girl,” while “Mommy-doesn’t-think-I-can-do-this” creeped in.

Now perhaps some of you are thinking that’s ridiculous. We need to parent our children, you say. We need to guide them, you say. We need to teach them, you say. And I believe this to be true. But please tell me why it would be necessary to say “please try not to spill it?” As if, by omitting this phrase, you would be encouraging the child to spill? As if the child would purposefully try to spill and fail? As if the child cannot make a mistake? “Please try not to spill it” does not need to be said because the child will already be trying not to spill it. Done and done.

Am I being too sensitive to this? Too emotional? Too picky? I don’t think so. I’m a sensitive soul and I know my kids. “Please try not to spill it” does not promote the self-confidence that I’m trying to cultivate in them. It does not add to their world and their worth. So it doesn’t make the cut.

Back to my earlier example, my daughter did not in fact spill her lunch, and she was very proud of herself for crossing the kitchen successfully. But if she had spilled, I would hope to use that as an opportunity for both of us to learn and grow. First, she was using a plastic children’t plate (like it would make a difference if the plate was breakable? ‘Wear the Dress Socks,’ remember?). Second, I can control my reaction so that it provides no fear component or worry about my approval. And third, and most notably, spills teach that people make mistakes. We clean up and move on. Life happens. And it’s often messy.

So I’m going to keep trying to set my children up for success, I’m going to keep trying to help them learn from their mistakes, and I’m going to keep trying to figure out this parenting gig.

“Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate. ~Unknown.”

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The Key Jar

2 Comments May 12, 2015 drworobec

I hope that you had a Happy Mother’s Day weekend, as I did. There was lots of family time in the sunshine for us, and that suits me just perfectly. I’m not at all about gifts and commercialism, in case you missed my ‘Gifts, and gifts, and gifts, oh my‘ post from awhile back. I’m about thoughtfulness, and experiences, and time together; but I’d like to share the knock-your-socks-off present that made my day, and perhaps my year… cue the melodrama.

My children, who are now six and three, came home from Kindergarten and Preschool with handmade loveliness in the form of decorated flower pots, butterfly canvases, and Mother’s Day cards. My husband added a sleep-in (I made it to 8:45am!), some fresh cut flowers (my fave!), and a homemade Whole30-approved brunch (today is Day 12 of my first Whole30, if you happen to be following along). Brilliant. I was a happy girl. And then they gave me this:

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This is a key jar. The premise is simple: the jar is filled with questions- thoughtful, exploratory, insightful questions. At family meals, we pull a ‘key’ from the jar and it unlocks beautiful conversation from our children’s hearts and minds.

But as wonderful as my husband is, and he really is wonderful, he did not come up with the key jar idea. In fact, it is a brainchild from the Momastery website, written by Glennon Doyle Melton. She writes:

“Getting to know ourselves and others is the greatest adventure. We are explorers of ourselves and the people we love. Love is the ongoing process of unlocking each other and keeping safe whatever we find. Thoughtful questions are the keys we use to do the unlocking and safekeeping.”

Here’s my (unsolicited) advice: