Zoe and I went for a Big Wheel walk. In other words, she big wheeled, I walked. We traveled around our tiny neighborhood block once.
First, she pressed a “button” on the handlebars and asked Siri for directions to the corner. “Siri, take me to the corner please – directions for Zoe Ingle.” She listened intently for a moment and then we were off.
Before we even made it to the corner, she was Tigger, and pretended that her big wheel was bouncy.
She found a little branch that had fallen off a pine tree, and explained that if I waved it from side to side it was red, but up and down made it green. We then had a “rally race” which consisted of a lot of flags and stopping and starting.
She stopped and hung her head. She was a sad Minnie Mouse, because it was “raining a robot rain and her bike basket got wet.” We pressed a “button” to magically dry her bike basket.
She drove intentionally into a yard, and became a sad Minnie Mouse, because her bike went into the “mud”. She and I worked together, using Teamwork, to extract her bike from the yard.
She chased me and had me chase her.
She climbed on a fire hydrant and pretended that she was scared of the world and only the hydrant was safe.
We stopped and picked dandelions, the only flower she is allowed to remove from people’s yards.
We found a pile of sticks and pretended it was a fire and warmed our hands over it and added more sticks to it.
She pretended to be a dog and had me throw a stick for her to fetch. She fetched it in her mouth, yipping excitedly.
Every time a car passed we had to be statues and freeze in place.
When we got home we rushed inside to put our dandelions in water.
This year has been really difficult for me – I can’t seem to make time enough in my day to do everything I want, as well as I want to do. Little girl doesn’t nap anymore, and she wants and wants and wants my attention. I really can’t do good, focused work except when she is at school or in bed, and there just aren’t enough hours like that. Because I work from home a lot of the time, I feel like I am eternally putting her off, or making compromises that I should not be making with my practicing, my fitness, or my sleep. And I never feel like I am on top of my big picture plans – getting through the week with clean clothes on is the best we can sometimes do.
It takes at least forty-five minutes to get around our block – but all that said, I would not trade this activity with my imaginative, amazing daughter for any amount of actual productivity at home. What a treat this is!
Surely your friends must feel strangely grateful, like me, for writing about Zoe. ChildrenAre the only next generation we have and whatever hopes and expectations we have, conscious as well as subconscious, are pinned on them. Zoe is your immediate connection with immortality, (as all our children are) and merits all your love and affection. I wish you all the best of health and happiness.(But let us hear your music now and then).Dimitri
Oh, do I hear you about not having enough hours or being able to do focused work! As a mom of 3 I have learned that each and every child wants every minute of my day to be spent on them. I had to admit to myself that that's not going to happen and forgive myself for that. I now have a system that works for both my daughter and myself on the days she is not at school that allows me to focus and her to be happy. Check out this website for reading/math games she can do by herself (we have received pretty amazing remarks as far as Rachael's development thanks to using it)http://www.starfall.com/ I also allow one movie a day and she does a lot of coloring/tracing letters. That gives me solid two hours in the morning. after that we usually go to the Y (she has made some great friends at the nursery and I get to run) That is followed by a short nap (she is 4 and if I am sitting in the room with her while she is falling asleep she ends up taking a good nap. And you could probably do reeds, too. I simply read) When she is good and asleep I usually get some more practicing done before picking boys up from school. Hope this helps.