Thank you facebook for this sweet little memory. <3
The heart of why I am a respectful parenting advocate and the reason why I decided to come back to work and start Racheal Kwacz Workshops:
I wanted mamas and daddies to get this moment, to understand the why and the how, to really enjoy their little big girls and boys and realize that half the battle was just believing in them then equipping them with the tools to succeed.
We got this! <3
We get ready to leave the house and stubbornly, defiantly, very very loudly she tells me she wants to put her shoes on all by herself. No help mama, NO! NO! NO! ELLA!!! ELLA!!!! Which is code for I do it.
I'm constantly in a hurry. I'm constantly on a schedule and running late and I hate running late but there's normal people time and baby time. It's those five seconds before you leave the door and she explodes in her diaper requiring a complete outfit change. Or her unwillingness to eat her breakfast without first carefully reorganizing the plate, chewing and exploring and testing out all the textures and feeding everyone, narrating her meal, having the longest conversation in the world. Or when you finally leave the house and then realize you have to turn back because you left one of the seventeen hundred things she needs for the day.
As a mama, you usually try to put a buffer in for these situations. You pack the diaper bag the night before, you allocate at least an hour just to get out the door, you plan and anticipate and yet it all very rarely goes exactly according to plan. She wakes up late, she's testing boundaries, you're just a hot mess.
Motherhood has changed me. Motherhood has reshaped me from girl to mama. It's required the parts of me that were once so sacred to be split wide open, it's made me fiercer yet more relaxed, more impatient yet with the patience of a saint.
She wanted to put on her shoes today. A skill she hasn't really mastered and something I knew she wouldn't be able to do. A part of me started to tell her she couldn't do it yet. To let mama do it for her. To negotiate. Then the fiercely independent stubborn part of me spoke out and rode it out w my little me.
I sat with her as she twisted and grunted and laughed with her as she encouraged and clapped and wow-ed for herself after she got one foot on. Holy awesomeness, she did it!
A lightbulb moment. Don't be that mom, Racheal. Don't tell her she can't or she's incapable and don't lose these quiet moments of wonder that slip in through the cracks where no one notices. It is a celebration hidden in the battle of independence. It is raising a little girl to listen to her voice that says I can and not beat her down with all the reasons why she can't. It is providing opportunities, it is being her advocate, it is saying we have five more minutes.
I was once this little girl too. And I know that some of the parts that I love about me is because my mama and daddy always nurtured my independence. They gave me five more minutes, they advocated, they patiently let me try and try even if they knew I might fail.
So little big girl, mama will sit here with you.
Mama will nurture your independence and be patient with you.
Mama will teach instead of yell, learn instead of silence, savor instead of miss.
Too soon so soon she will ace this. Too soon so soon she won't need me anymore.
Because after she tries and tries and is satisfied of trying, she sweetly looks up to me, smiles and says "please mama shoe".
And it's not a lot, but it is everything.
I got you little girl.
Xx
(18m)
