i predict lots of broken glass

The little guy who lives in my belly is an acrobat.

Annaleigh was a mover and a shaker, but not even she can top the skills of her little brother, in utero.

I'm pretty sure the boy thinks that I'm the one in the way.

Self-centered and active.  Just wonderful.

*****

I love to read blogs.  I love reading them almost as much as writing them.  A few of you, out there in the blogging-world, have talked a lot about the beautiful and warm days you are having in your neck of the woods.  Such a strange concept to me.  Beautiful?  Warm?  I live in NEPA (North East Pennsylvania).  Here, we don't experience those two adjectives very often, let alone in the same sentence.

But I'd have to say, that this week, it has been beautiful and warm.  

So that leaves plenty of time to head to the park with my sweet Annaleigh.  She simply LOVES being outdoors...what kid doesn't deep down inside? until maybe they discover the wonder of video games...

She enjoys the open space, the ramps on the play-yard, and all the other people that are just her size.  

I saunter behind her, enjoying the long-awaited sunshine on my face, as Annaleigh runs everywhere her eyes can take her. I then spot a mother and her son.  Her son clearly loves being outside, too.  He runs in loopy-circles, has red sweaty, happy cheeks, and bounces like a trotting horse.  He grins from ear to ear, fully exposing his entire set of toddler-sized-pearly-whites.  His hands hang to the side, slightly raised, and they move up as his body moves down...and vice versa...in a synchronized and complimentary way.   His feet are clearly deciding the path on which his body will go, instead of his mind.  His clueless-ness provides his bliss.

Behind him, close behind him, runs his mother.  She's out of breath and exasperated.  As if she's trying to prevent any and every possible mishap.  She calls his name again and again.  Attempting to guide him away from this and towards that.  She repeats to the mothers and fathers around her, "He doesn't listen.  He never listens to me..."  She is apparently embarrassed by his behavior.   I think to myself, but by what behavior.  According to my observation, he's not even near anything dangerous.  He's on the ground...the playground ground...the ground that feels like rubber...the ground that doesn't leave a mark when you fall.  The kid is just playing.  

The definition of 'true' play is:  what a kid naturally does.  It's "non-directed" activity.

I couldn't fathom all the energy that was being wasted by that poor mother.  Just let him be.  And use your God-given "spidey-mom-sense", at the appropriate time, to discern his likely-hood of appendage-severing or head-splitting behavior.

*****

Note from a former teacher:  when you say "no" to your child when it really matters, they will learn to trust that guidance (because it's consistent, they will learn to see -over time- it keeps them safe rather than you just being "mean", and it's not a word you use frivolously), and then they'll listen to you when it really matters.  It's always best (when possible) to "re-direct" your child's behavior, instead of constantly scolding him.

*****

The mother continues to run at the heels of her son, calling his name, as he chases his own feet.  He continues to be oblivious to reality and is evidently happy (in spite of his mother's rapid heart-beat and rising blood-pressure).

Just then, my own uterine-encased little boy performs a double corkscrew-twist dismount, off of an internal trapeze, landing perfectly on my bladder and begins to bounce on it as if it's his own personal trampoline. 

I laugh inside.  I have no doubts that the joke's gonna be on me.

The moral of this story?  People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones....or give birth to acrobats.

Just wonderful.