Babies, toddlers, and kids all have emotions and feelings just like us adults do. They have bad days and good days. They have moments where things in their little world are just "not right". They have attitudes, they whine, they complain, they cry, they feel angry, they feel sad...just like adults do sometimes. They just aren't always very good at telling us adults exactly what it is they are feeling because they probably really don't know how to explain it in words very well.
Liam has been having very big emotions this week. He misses his Daddy like crazy. Nathan left early Tuesday morning and won't be back until Sunday but besides this work trip, he's been working a lot at his other two jobs and just last month was away for a week in Mexico. So the kids (and me) are all really feeling the affects of it and missing him terribly. Liam doesn't really know how to explain how much he misses Nathan but I can tell through his behavior.
He's way more clingy that he usually is and has pretty much refused to even go potty without me walking with him and standing right next to him. I had just gotten him to the point where he would go all by himself about three weeks ago and then Nathan left for this trip and we're back to me having to be right there with him the whole time. I've tried to say things like "Liam you are big, you know how to go potty by yourself, just walk in there and go." And I even put him in time out once for not going when I told him to. That ended so well... Not really. It ended with Liam sitting on the seat of the toilet sobbing for about five minutes until I realized that this was going no where fast and he is obviously dealing with some bigger issues inside than just "not wanting to obey and go potty". Once today when he said he needed to go potty, I suggested that he go by himself and he grabbed my hand and said
"Come on Mom, come with me! It will be fun!"
Really...how could I say no to that :)
He's also been asking for Nathan about every 1.2 seconds. Well not really that often but every 5-10 minutes for the past two days he's been saying "I want Daddy!" And he won't stop saying it until I've acknowledged the fact that "I understand he misses Daddy and I miss him too." Then he goes about playing or whatever it is he is doing for a few minutes and then he starts it over again. My heart hurts for him because I totally understand what he is feeling.
Tonight after dinner, I was washing dishes. Alanna was standing next to me crying and Liam was playing with blocks in the living room saying "I want Daddy!" There was a list of things I wanted to get done before they went to bed, but I decided that all those things needed to wait. My little ones needed me way more. So I quick finished the dishes and then grabbed two bottles of bubbles. Ruy is gone this weekend so he wasn't here to play bubbles with us. We are missing him as well.
Bubbles are such a simple thing but they never cease to amaze children. Alanna and Liam were so excited. Liam tried to catch the bubbles on his wand. Alanna ran around trying to pop the ones I was blowing. Liam thought it was great fun to blow bubbles straight in mine and Alanna's eyes. (I did not think this was so fun)
Then Alanna decided she wanted to blow the bubbles herself. So I had her sit next to me and I held the container while she put the wand in it and ate blew the bubbles. Really though, I think she ate more bubbles than actually blew them. She kept looking up at me and saying "hmm nummy" Which means "yummy".
Liam thought it was so funny that she was eating them so he had to try it out too. Then he told her "Watch Alanna this is what you do!" And he showed her how to blow the bubbles and not eat them.
It was such a simple little thing...sitting on the front porch blowing bubbles. But it brought both of the kids out of their unhappy moods and made them so ridiculously happy. I sat there thinking of how I need to be more like that and just allow the simple little things of life bring me joy and not get so caught up in all the things the world says I need to be happy.
Liam was a lot happier the rest of the night. He played blocks for a little bit longer, we snuggled up and read books just the two of us after I got Alanna to bed, we sang songs, and he even went potty without me helping him with everything. Then we did our "Eskimo kiss" (where you rub noses) and Liam said it was like coloring noses because we were rubbing our noses together. And then I kissed his sweet face all over and tucked him into bed. He went to bed much more content than he had been the rest of the day. Having me spend a little bit of extra time with him just playing and being with him really helped him feel better. And isn't that how we are as adults too. When we feel down and are having a bad day, we just want someone to be kind to us, and to love on us.
So tomorrow spend a little extra time just loving on all your sweet babies!
I'm going to spend the day tomorrow really trying to just enjoy all the little simple things about our day and really live in each moment.
No comments