Becoming More Independent

It's an amazing, interesting, scary and exhilarating thing to watch your children become more independent. Realizing that this once tiny little person who could do nothing for themselves now has all of these abilities is unbelievable. And it's interesting seeing them try, struggle and then succeed at something. And scary to realize that you are no longer as necessary as you were before. And exhilarating to see that your child is growing, learning, and will one day be able to be on their own as they should be.

As Riley prepares for kindergarten, we've been working even harder to help become more independent. Since he is the baby of the family, he tends to ask for help to do things that he can most definitely do for himself. However, he likes you to "help" him or better yet just do it for him. Just this week we had a major ordeal in the bathroom over him hanging the towel on the towel rack rather than dropping it in the floor or throwing it in the sink. Granted, the towel rack is on the wall but he could throw it over the rack and pull it over. How do I know this? Because he does it on the shower door and it is just slightly lower than the towel rack. He resisted and I insisted. And do you know what he did this morning? He put the towel on the towel rack without asking for any help. And do you know what I did? I told him "Good job, I knew you could do that!"

On Wednesday afternoon, we had quite a schedule. Get off work, pick up Riley, stop at the house to get Jonah's clothes & Gatorade, pick up Jonah, take Jonah to work outs at 5:30, get dinner for Riley and myself, get to church for VBS planning meeting at 6:00 and then have Bible study at 7:00. This took some organization and planning to make sure everyone was where they should be at the appropriate time, clothed and fed. Jason's part of the plan was to get off work at 5:00 and make it over to the football field for Jonah's work outs about the time it was to start at 5:30. However, if I was going to get Riley and myself fed before we had to be at the church for the VBS meeting at 6:00 then I needed to leave the field before 5:30. So.....I had to leave Jonah at the work out with the coach by himself. It is the first time I've ever just dropped him off for a practice. Either Jason or myself have always been at every practice from beginning to end for every sport he's played. You wouldn't think that is too much but considering we started with soccer at age three and Jonah turns seven in September and that he's already played four different sports (soccer, basketball, tball, and this fall is football), we're already racking up the miles for practice and game attendance. And although Jason did end up making it to the work out about the time it started, it was the fact that Jonah opened the door of the car, grabbed his bag and his drink and ran to the field to meet up with the coach and I drove away.

Amazing, interesting, scary, exhilarating.....my boys are growing up.