Monday morning

Sitting here, getting my work bearings for the week, and cleaning up various straggling tasks to be done from the weekend. J is sitting next to me, playing the Wii. I am alternately encouraging and critical (in what I hope is an encouraging way). "Great!" "Move your guy! MOVE YOUR THING AROUND!" God help me. I am going to be one of those parents shouting from the sidelines at the soccer games. Someone put a gun to my head...

We had our annual summer party Saturday night (a huge success, thanks in no small part to all the help I received from friends and family, along with the cold, hard cash we laid out for a moon bounce rental), and the preparations for said party forced me to loosen my normally iron grip on small, meaningless things around the house. For example, J spread small crumbs of play-doh around her work table multiple times on Saturday, and I barely raised an eyebrow or considered how many times I would have to re-clean the floor before the guests arrived.

While I was folding a batch of laundry, she lamented having to put the play-doh in tubs before going on to other toys. "But Mommy, I love the cupcakes I made!"

"Why not take a picture of them?" On any other day, I would have worried about the camera more than the preservation of J's creation, but on this day of scrambling to get an impossible number of things done, I thought it would be worth it for her to be playing independently for just a little while longer. Almost immediately I realized she would love the grown-up activity, and find lots of successes to buoy her confidence. Her little head close to mine, we held the camera together as she got the hang of holding down the button until the photo had been taken. She moved on to turning the flash on and off, and figuring the right distance away from an object to stand in order for the camera to focus properly. And that's the last I saw of her for over an hour.

When I got the camera back, I was in for a treat - a view of our home and property from her perspective. She did an amazing job, IMHO.



I should have realized sooner that she is more than capable of taking on bigger-kid things. This is a lesson I hope to keep in mind as we start the second half of summer, sliding slowly downhill towards kindergarten (sob!). She was so proud of herself and her new skill, and I was thankful I had actually let her explore something new without micro-managing her every move. I guess we both found successes to buoy our confidence....

P.S. Yes, JBL's shirt DOES say 'I'm kind of a BIG DEAL'. And, yes, his desk IS nothing more than two filing cabinets with a cheap door on top. But, no, those are not two festive beverages on the desk. They're actually water cups. Honest-injun.