Arguing in front of the Kids – should we do it, not do it? Or is it not so much about whether we do it but HOW we do it?
Enriching your Life with Community Living
One of the nice things about community living – which, yes I know, I have mentioned many times before – is having different people around, with different expressions and ideas. Here Cesar is playing with a frozen hand, which Kim came up with after they played with a kitchen glove filled with water (don’t worry …
Boat Ride on the Dam
This is from a while ago but I forgot to post it. Our own little boat experience on our little dam! Cesar loved it. I also got a chance to peddle (read = I went in the boat thinking Gian is going to stay with me but then gets out and pushes boat out into …
To Teach or Not to Teach
When it comes down to learning and education, there are a lot of different views on what is appropriate and what is not. Children are being taught too many things too early, Children need more play and unstructured time. Children need to be taught earlier, they need more structure. As a reaction to our overzealous …
Parenting is a Dialogue
When I was pregnant, I was very worried about what was ahead of me. About how I was going to be responsible for this child, how I would influence him. Little did I know, that I wasn’t so much influencing and changing him, as he was changing and influencing me for the most part. This …
Pregnancy – Is it Good or Bad?
In my previous blogs I walked through how my general experience of finding out that I was pregnant and how it was negatively tinted, because of how I had associated memories from my past where pregnancy has been in a negative context. Once I realised that pregnancy isn’t ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ or ‘negative’ through understanding where …
Pregnancy is Not for Me
This post is a continuation to ‘Crap. I’m Pregnant’. At the end of the post I said I would be looking into some of the reactions and my experience within finding out that I was pregnant. So the most predominant experience around finding out that I was pregnant was a definitive negative one. I immediately …
Crap. I’m Pregnant.
It started with being late. Both me and my sister were late though and the other person whose part of our ‘joint’ menstrual cycle was also have some ‘discrepancies’. I had gotten all my pre-menstruation signs: some pimples on my face, chocolate craving, some nausea here and there – but no bleeding. So the days …
![Cesar gave Syntia his train tracks about a year ago, and before they were hers, she would play with them together with Cesar. She's had a ton of time to learn the different pieces, how to put them together and build a track, but for some reason, she DID NOT want to build a track by herself and most of all preferred to just watch as someone else built the track for her.
Lj and I knew she was perfectly capable of building a track for herself and we tried to support her to start small and show herself that she can do it. Or that we'd be here if she gets stuck, but she can at least try on her own. Any such attempts, however, were met with an absolute and firm refusal. So, we did it with her, or for her.
We started wondering, is this little girl really just taking advantage of us at this point? Are we entertaining this too much? Should we push harder? We knew she could do it, she knew she could do it, but for some reason she just didn't want to do it, at least, not yet.
And then one day, out of the blue, she takes out her blocks and starts building a track... by herself. Lj quietly waived me over, pointing at her, then signing 'shhht', lol - didn't want to disturb the moment. The track you see in the pic is the first one she built by herself. It wasn't a "beginner's" track like a simple circle or a straight line, it was a more intricate design laid out exactly and precisely how she wanted it to be, including all the elements she wanted to have as a part of it. Kabam, out of the blue.
There are other things where Syntia 'took her sweet time', like learning how to walk and potty training, where it was clear at some point that she was able to do it, but for some reason, pulled back or didn't want to do it all by herself just yet. It's so easy as parents to freak out over that, to think that children should develop skills in a particular way, like 'starting small' or doing something by yourself as soon as you're able to. But not all kids are the same in this. [Continued in comments..]](https://scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/135216034_868657797266702_107582540258970761_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c4dd86&_nc_ohc=Z1V8WJUUqosAX-4LmjA&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfCJjAXVxtNiIi6gvUUl0MZd6cdkXtaHW6r2JeZgYPVE-A&oe=64DB2E92)
