Stream of Consciousness Sunday: What I learned this week

I’m linking up again for Stream of Consciousness Sunday. I love these posts. Random thoughts for 5 minutes? Sign me up. This week’s prompt is “what I learned this week.” (Side note: I should have written all about how I moved to WordPress and didn’t harm anyone, but I’m going to save that for another day. I’ll focus on patience today.)

This past week has been a tough one for me and the toddler. He’s two. He is trying to be so independent and he does. not. want. your. help.

He wants to use the rail on the stairs, rather than let me or his dad carry him up our two flights of steps. He wants to brush his own teeth. He wants to turn on the clock radio himself and he just wants to do it all.

At bedtime, three books are not enough. Five or six books are not enough. We get to 16 books and they are still not enough. He needs another book.

Today at nap time he started crying for no apparent reason (except he was definitely over-tired. Sunday school is hard work/socializing, y’all.) I laid him down and he just cried. I let a few minutes go by and his cries were harder, so I went in to check on him, which is something we don’t do often because he doesn’t often need it. I rocked him for a few minutes – another thing he normally doesn’t let us do – and he started to relax. He just needed some hugs. He had been crying so hard that he was having a hard time calming down and breathing, occasionally still whimpering. I just rocked him until he was able to start nodding off.

Sometimes we need a little more one-on-one time. Some time to just be. I need to remember that with my toddler. He’s 2, not 10. He believes he’s Mr. Independent, but he needs me for so much.

We all just need a little extra cuddling sometimes. He needed his mommy. And who am I to deny that?