Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION
I really can’t decide what I like most about being a parent.
It changes from day to day, moment to moment even. I love the hugs. I can’t make it through the day without at least two good cuddles in the morning from my monkey.
Even though I’ve complained endlessly to anyone who will hear me that my daughter was a horrible sleeper and she still isn’t that great some nights, I secretly enjoy the fact that she "needs Mommy," still at three o’clock in the morning. I loved being called Mommy.
I think I finally have a title that suits the "mother hen, oldest of four," personality I’ve had my whole life. What I think I love the most about having a kid is being a kid again.
My monkey has a wondrous and expansive imagination that is like a very tall tree with millions of branches and billions of leaves each one a new idea of hers.
Her playful mind completely amazes the Better Half and I and I love to get caught up in it.
Playing with a four year old is sure different than playing with her when she was a baby or 2 or 3 years-old even.
Her imagination has really blossomed since she’s turned four. She loves to tell elaborate stories about the adventures her much worn and very dirty constant companion "bunny" goes on.
"He owns his own toy store Mommy in the land of Bunnyton and one day he was riding his bike and then it broke. He was far away from home so he took a parachute way up into the sky and met..."
She likes to make up games. Last night we all played a game where we were baby birds hatching out of eggs.
The couch is often our airplane or car or special super duper snow/water/mountain climber that we ride in.
When she plays with her dolls they’re on safaris with pirates or at work at the pink factory where, I assume, everything made there is pink.
It must be close to Pink Mountain, where she and her stuffed animals have gone tobogganing.
I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my whole life. When I play with her, I get to let go, for a few minutes, of the much more boring and stressful adult life I have.
When I play with her, I get to be the kid in me again, who once played those games and climbed those pretend mountains. (Although I think mine were less pink. I had three younger brothers and of course had to consider their colour preferences in the games we played.)
I was so anxious to grow up that I forgot how much fun it is to be a kid.
I’m just hoping that she isn’t as anxious as I was to grow up and that we can enjoy her being a kid together for much longer. I tell her, "Stop growing up so fast!"
And she says, "Oh Mommy, I can’t help it! I’m just growing up. But don’t worry; I’ll still play with you when I’m big."
Kyla Henderson is a local freelance journalist, business owner and mommy. Her column runs every week in the Community News.
» kyla@lilbitbaby.ca
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition August 9, 2012
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I really can’t decide what I like most about being a parent.
It changes from day to day, moment to moment even. I love the hugs. I can’t make it through the day without at least two good cuddles in the morning from my monkey.
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I really can’t decide what I like most about being a parent.
It changes from day to day, moment to moment even. I love the hugs. I can’t make it through the day without at least two good cuddles in the morning from my monkey.
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