Sometimes I make little secret New Year's resolutions. I try to keep them small, as not to stress myself out over keeping them...because really....I don't need one more single thing to stress over. I also tend to keep them somewhat secretive. I don't really believe in that whole idea where if you tell a bunch of people that you're going to do something then you're more inclined to actually do it....peer pressure, I guess. I am my biggest motivator and I am my biggest critic.....so I really only need to commit to my resolutions in front of me! So I'll keep the majority of my little resolutions to myself....but this one I think I can share....
I'm definitely committing to spending more time with Mia this year. I'm talking about uninterrupted, completely focused, fun time with my daughter. Don't get me wrong....we do a lot of stuff together. We go to the grocery store, we go to story times at the library, we always eat dinner together as a family, and we really do plan some fun activities together each week. But it's all too often that a whole day will quickly turn into me telling her over and over again...."go play with that" or "go read that" or "go watch that show". And before I know it the day is over and I'm so mad at myself for not just stopping what I was doing for even an hour of the day to just spend quality time with her. This whole adjustment to working from home has been very difficult for me. It is SO SO hard to walk away from your work when your work just constantly surrounds you. There's always something to be done, an email to return, bakery boxes to be folded, ribbons to be tied, etc.....and I just can't get away from it!
Mia is super-great at playing by herself, which I think is really important for kids to learn how to do, but I'm now committing some time each day, no matter HOW busy I am, to just spend with her and be silly, do something out of the ordinary, something NOT planned, make something together, teach her something, just time to be together and not be bothered by work. And so far, I'm loving it!
What inspired this resolution was a day back in early December. I was making these tea pot and tea cup cookies to be shipped to a birthday party in Michigan.
The whole time I'm making these cookies for another little girl I couldn't help but think how fun it would be for MY little girl to see these and be able to play with them. I baked a few extra and made a secret promise to myself to make these for Mia and surprise her with an edible tea party.
So I finish my order and ship the cookies off to Michigan....and I'm so excited to show Mia the set of cookies that I made for her....and just as I thought, she absolutely LOVED them. We giggled and laughed as we shared the coolest tea party ever. And then, I spotted a little stack of undecorated tea cup and tea pot cookies and I blurted out...."Do you want to decorate your own cookies?" OMG. What did I just do? I'm going to let her touch this stuff? Get all sticky and icingy? Make a huge mess? WHAT WAS I THINKING???? But the way that her little face lit up was so amazing that I suddenly didn't care about that other stuff. I mean, I can have a little control over the situation and she can still have so much fun. It's not like I was going to give her a gallon of icing and lots of food coloring and walk away! We're going to do this together. Maybe I'll even teach her a little something....and that's completely worth any mess that we could make.
So since that day, I've been really enjoying my small breaks that I take to spend time with my daughter. We've made crafts, we wrapped Xmas gifts together, we've gone pretend-camping in her tent, we've folded laundry together, we've looked through our family photo albums, we've painted our nails, we've had dance parties.....and so much more.
And of course....I got a brilliant idea for the cookie business from our little cookie-decorating date that day. I'm hoping that someday I'll be able to do cookie-decorating birthday parties for kids! Wouldn't that be so fun?
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