Raising a 4 year old in a household of much older brothers is a very different experience for me. When my older boys were this small, it was a very different household. I was a different mother. I was still forcing kids to finish their vegetables, go to bed at 8, and there was not a video game in the house. I worked full-time then, so their lives were full of structure. They went to pre-school all day, then we did dinner, baths, read & had a little play time, then off to bed. They had time-outs, and even the occasional spanking. I am so busy multi-tasking these days that if I do put Nick in time-out, I often forget he is there, and he just starts playing again-- totally ineffective I know. He plays DS, PlayStation 3, and XBox. He plays roller hockey, and can ride a skateboard. His vocabulary (while his speech is still a little difficult to understand), is like that of a 10 year old. He changes the channel on the TV, and says, "oh no, Mommy, we'd better change it, that isn't appropriate for me". He is definitely having a different toddler experience than his brothers did. In good ways too. We do everything together, like peas and carrots.
I am helping to prepare a baby shower for a young woman at our church. She is young, just 22. Thinking about her, and what the future may hold for her and her little family, got me to thinking about life at 22. Much has changed for me since I was 22. That was really a difficult time. I didn't realize at the time that it was difficult. I had graduated from college, was having a post college, pre-real life, super good time. I was bar tending, partying, picking up and traveling to far away places to party some more. I didn't really have much in the way of financial responsibility yet, and my parents were living in Egypt-- leaving me in charge of the house and my younger sister. It was an "out all night, sleep all day", kind of life. To be honest, I was setting a pretty poor example for my sister, who at the time was working full-time at a nursing home, and was far more responsible than I was. Looking back at that time, and even later, till about age 25, it make...
Comments
Post a Comment