You know how they say having an easy first child gives you the false confidence to breed again? Gotta say I’m pretty firmly behind that theory. My older daughter was pretty close to perfect in her younger years. Slept through the night right away, never bit anyone or tried to cut her own hair. She never wrote on walls or had meltdowns in the grocery store. And she’s been a pretty top-notch role model for her little sister.
But Ria don’t care about none of that shit. Not that she’s a bad kid, more leaning towards the “follows the beat of her own drum” type. It’s what makes her unique and delightful. Also what makes me look like an awful mother when I laugh at her inappropriateness.
In preparation for the beginning of homeschooling, I’ve been grilling the girls on what they WANT to learn and what fun things we can do together. I told them it doesn’t necessarily have to fit into the categories of traditional school subjects. I’m trying to push them more toward the arts, as I feel if you have a creative mind, you can do pretty much anything. Now, I’m not taking this too far, I realize that honing their beatboxing skills won’t help too much if they happen across a fella lying in the road with his femur protruding from his thigh. But, it may help to distract him from the pain until legitimate help arrives. Everything is connected, my friends.
Ria has taken to telling stories with her hands. Perhaps she will be a puppeteer. She showed me one in which she pretends to bite off all but one of the fingers on each of her hands and then act out a scene with remaining fingers. I ask her how she decided which digits would be salvaged for her “play.” “Well, those are my nose-picking fingers, I don’t want to eat them!” Come on, ma, I really shoulda guessed that. You can’t say this girl doesn’t think things through with logic and self-preservation as priorities.
It’s Labor Day weekend, I’m hoping everyone is enjoying some safe down time. “School” for my girls starts on Wednesday. I’m sure there will be some shenanigans to report soon.
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