A Perfectly Made Bed

Our summer chores have kicked in to full swing.  One of them is they have to make their bed each morning.  Well, Heidi sleeps with me when Kyle is gone and the babies still sleep in her bed.  So Heidi helps me and Karter and Sophie make Heidi's bed. 

I didn't tell them "how to make it" or tell them this is right or that's wrong.  I just let them make it.  And they did an absolutely fantastic job!

As soon as I saw it, I just smiled so big.  They made it so perfectly in their eyes.  They even came to where I was in Sophie's room to find Heidi's owl pillow to put in the center.

I love it and I know it will improve with each making. 

It got me to thinking about how "we" as parents sometimes try to perfect our children in certain areas.  It could be things we don't even realize (such as making the bed right or wrong) or it could be their hobbies like dance, cheer, ball, etc.   I want our children to be busy with activities, but I want them to do things that they enjoy doing.  It may take us trying several different things to figure out what each one likes the best, but that is okay.  I'm not going to "make" them do what I want them to do.  Heidi had decided she wanted to take this year off from dance.  I kept asking her if she was sure, and I mentioned her taking baton or something different to see if she would like it.  She said no, that she wanted to take the year off from activities.  As much as I didn't want her to do that, I was okay with taking a year off so that she could figure out if she missed dance or if she wanted to try something new.  I also knew that once she put some thought in to it she wouldn't want to quit.  I was right.  She is excited and ready to start dance this coming year.

Karter and Sophie both love to help me in the kitchen.  We make the biggest, funnest messes.  We make memories..... not perfecting dishes.  They stir too fast and almost always sling stuff out of the bowls. But each time they help me, they get better and better at stirring. 

Something as simple as when they help me load or unload the dish washer, I don't go behind them correcting them the entire time.  Kyle laughs at me because I am just like my Dad and I like our dish washer to me loaded a certain way, I almost always re-do it when the kids put the dishes in, but not in front of them.  I don't want them to get the idea that they can't do anything right.

Sophie loves to help me do laundry.  She likes to toss the clothes in the dryer, put them in the washer, and pour the detergent in.  Do you know how many times she has dropped the detergent in the washer lid, or on the top of the "spinner" where water doesn't get, or the side where the water doesn't hit?  That's A-Okay.  She is learning a little more each time she helps me.

Or how about yesterday when they were collecting the eggs?  They probably dropped and cracked about 5 total (which is unusual might I add), but they were all working together.

** I try to tell our kids every day how proud I am of them and I always tell them thank you when they do what they are supposed to or asked to do.  Granted, sometimes they half way do things and they have to re-do them, but when Karter and Sophie made that bed together, just seeing their concentration and how proud they were of their accomplishment, it made me so very proud of them.