Spending Time

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging.
~Diane Loomans, from "If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again"

Putting Zoe first. That's my focus. Thankfully, Cheo and I agree that the most important thing we can do is fill her life with love, laughter, joy and amazing experiences. Every day should be exciting, and can be.

The past few days we've painted ornaments, made cards, cleaned the bathroom, drawn pictures, done the laundry, written addresses, told stories and had snuggle time. We also watched movies, YouTube (she wanted to know about germs) and tv shows, and listened to music. Her favorite movies right now are Despicable Me (2010) and The Three Caballeros (1944).

She thinks cleaning and doing the laundry are fun - most of the time. :) We've learned about lots of things during our play time: sorting, mold, germs, hygiene, how to address envelopes, how to make a card.....I can't even begin to list everything. She asks a LOT of questions, and if I don't know the answer, we find it together. She says, "Why don't you type it in Google?" Totally. Awesome.

Zoe said that she wants to move back to Texas today. And she meant move TODAY, so I compromised and instead of moving we made a "Countdown to Texas" poster. It looks like the Texas flag, but it has numbers all over it. It starts with 89 and counts down to 1. The 1 is in the star. She was pretty bummed when she saw all the numbers. It's hard to explain to her the concept of 3 months. But she's seeing the days represented by numbers, and I think she's getting it. So we'll start counting down tomorrow. And we'll keep on playing!