One of my favorite parenting authors, Becky Bailey, has a book called "I Love You Rituals". It's a collection of ideas to help parents connect with their children. I haven't yet read the book, though it's on the list I keep in the back of my mind of books I'd someday like to have.
But today, I realized that we already have an "I love you" ritual already in our family. At least, it's becoming a ritual if things keep on going the way they have this past week. Dallin has initiated daily basketball, one-on-one with Mommy, and then again, one-on-one with Daddy later in the evening.
Now, basketball is NOT my thing. Basketball falls under the category of "sports", and I hate sports. All of them! But after listening to Dallin beg and beg for me to play basketball with him, and after running out of excuses day after day to put him off, I decided one afternoon to just go out and play with him for a few minutes.
I had fun! And he loved it. And he loved me! I mean, he loved me already... but I could tell this really meant a lot to him. I could tell that he got a huge kick out of the fact that his Mom was playing b-ball with him. My "coolness" grew a hundred percent in his eyes that day.
So now we've played almost every day this week. After homework and piano practice are finished, we go outside and I indulge him in his love of sports and his love of having my almost-undivided attention. (We do have to manage to keep RiRi from getting hit by cars, you know.)
He shows his affection in the funniest ways. Like by talking trash to me the whole time we play. "Are ya gonna go hard on me this time???" (I think this means, "Are you going to actually start playing like you care about this game and want to beat me? Are you going to actually start challenging my abilities?")
He's also started allowing me to get some points. By this, I don't mean that he lets me get baskets. I can sometimes manage to do that myself, believe it or not. What I mean is that his scorekeeping is getting slightly more accurate and doesn't quite as often involve extensive exaggeration of his own number of baskets. I take it as a huge compliment that he will now rattle off a score closer than "15 to 3"! As much as he can't quite keep track of the real score accurately, at least he is acknowleging his respect of my playing abilities by not having himself cream me to pieces every single time.
Aw, times like this make me adore my little guy! My little guy is trying to hard to be a big guy, but he still thrives on his Mommy's love and attention. I'm still the light of his life! The look in his eyes when he evades my blocking to score a basket says all of this and more. (And as much as he likes to win, he also gets that look when I score a basket on him.)
But today, I realized that we already have an "I love you" ritual already in our family. At least, it's becoming a ritual if things keep on going the way they have this past week. Dallin has initiated daily basketball, one-on-one with Mommy, and then again, one-on-one with Daddy later in the evening.
Now, basketball is NOT my thing. Basketball falls under the category of "sports", and I hate sports. All of them! But after listening to Dallin beg and beg for me to play basketball with him, and after running out of excuses day after day to put him off, I decided one afternoon to just go out and play with him for a few minutes.
I had fun! And he loved it. And he loved me! I mean, he loved me already... but I could tell this really meant a lot to him. I could tell that he got a huge kick out of the fact that his Mom was playing b-ball with him. My "coolness" grew a hundred percent in his eyes that day.
So now we've played almost every day this week. After homework and piano practice are finished, we go outside and I indulge him in his love of sports and his love of having my almost-undivided attention. (We do have to manage to keep RiRi from getting hit by cars, you know.)
He shows his affection in the funniest ways. Like by talking trash to me the whole time we play. "Are ya gonna go hard on me this time???" (I think this means, "Are you going to actually start playing like you care about this game and want to beat me? Are you going to actually start challenging my abilities?")
He's also started allowing me to get some points. By this, I don't mean that he lets me get baskets. I can sometimes manage to do that myself, believe it or not. What I mean is that his scorekeeping is getting slightly more accurate and doesn't quite as often involve extensive exaggeration of his own number of baskets. I take it as a huge compliment that he will now rattle off a score closer than "15 to 3"! As much as he can't quite keep track of the real score accurately, at least he is acknowleging his respect of my playing abilities by not having himself cream me to pieces every single time.
Aw, times like this make me adore my little guy! My little guy is trying to hard to be a big guy, but he still thrives on his Mommy's love and attention. I'm still the light of his life! The look in his eyes when he evades my blocking to score a basket says all of this and more. (And as much as he likes to win, he also gets that look when I score a basket on him.)
Comments