Let Go...and "Play-Doh"!

It was 7:30 in the morning and I was already tired, stressed, and cranky. I wasn’t feeling well and my dear two year old was pushing me to my limit. I was trying to clean up the million little messes in the house, but he wanted my attention and was trying every negative behavior in order to get it. Along with all of this chaos, we were supposed to be getting ready to go to MOPS (a mom’s group I am in). It suddenly hit me, I needed to just stop. I needed to wipe everything off my agenda for a few minutes, and sit down and give my son 100% of my attention. I remembered that I had bought a new play-doh kit that he hadn’t even seen yet. So I plopped his little card table and chairs right in the middle of the messy kitchen and said, “Dylan, let’s do play-doh.” I was amazed at how the intensity of stress, both mine and his, immediately melted away. His big brown eyes lit up and every bit of his toddler attitude and defiance was gone. Dylan and I sat at that little table and played for two hours! Two hours!! (Maya blessed us with a long early nap!) The house was a disaster, and we missed MOPS, but I did not care one bit. For two hours we made snakes, spiders, penguins, flowers, rain, suns, and baseballs. We used fun words like squeeze and squish and roll. We talked about letters, numbers, colors and shapes. We sang a silly song that I made up about keeping the play-doh on the table and not on the floor! For two hours I played with my son in a way that I haven’t in a very long time. I am so thankful for this, and realize that as often as I can, I need to let go of my agenda and just “be” with my kids.