This is Ruby playing on the stool in our kitchen. Before I was able to
get my phone out and take a picture she’d been previously standing
atop the stool. A discussion about safety ensued. As you might
imagine, ruby and I had different opinions as to what exactly was safe
to do on top of the stool. Ruby was in favor of standing, dancing,
wiggling, climbing onto counter, and jumping off the stool altogether.
I, on the other hand, was advocating for sitting and eating her peanut
butter sandwich.
What was funny about the entire experience was her process of finding
common ground with me. She must have tried 10 or 12 different
positions on top of the stool in hopes of having me agree to her
getting her way. This was an interesting scenario for me. I wasn’t
sure if I should attempt to compromise with her and allow her to kneel
on the stool or if I should hold out for what I thought was the safe
option. She wasn’t really willing to give up any ground. She continued
to try new versions of “sitting” on the stool and kept asking me “how
’bout this?” I’magine her doing everything from lying on the stool on
her tummy to kneeling on the stool to climbimg down off the stool and
standing on foot rail you can see in the picture. She was determined
to find someway to be on that stool that didn’t involve her actually
sitting on it.
The question I was asking myself in my head while all this was going
on was not “do I really care if she sits “properly” on the stool?” nor
was it “How do I convince her to sit properly?” it was ” am I
comfortable with her falling off the stool altogether?”
One of the things we talked a lot about in teacher’s college was
natural consequences. For example, if you’re standing on top of the
stool, and your dad tells you it’s unsafe, and you keep standing
anyway, and then you fall off and hurt yourself, that’s okay because
then you learn that standing on the stool can lead to getting hurt.
Okay, we never actually talked about that kind of a scenario in
teacher’s college. All the situations that came up in those
discussions involved a little less risk and a little less consequence.
They were more along the lines of: if you don’t want to go out for
recess wearing a coat in January that’s fine. Go outside with out one
and discover that it’s cold outside in January and you should wear a
coat. But I’m not in a school, I’m in my house, and Ruby is not one of
my students (although she is quite a Quick study and I know she’s
learning all the time from me – it’s a scary thought but that’s a
different blog post – back to natural consequences), she’s my
daughter. I’m happy that Ruby is a risk taker. In fact, I’ll take full
responsibility for the fact that she thinks it’s hilarious to stand on
the coffee table and leap off onto the couch. And I can’t wait to
teach her how to climb trees. I suppose I’m searching for the middle
ground. Somewhere in between falling off the stool while you are
supposed to be eating lunch and cracking your head open on the counter
top while your dad is sitting right there and watching the whole thing
and deciding to ride your scooter down the slight slope of our
driveway while you are wearing a helmet and it isn’t too far to the
ground and you aren’t going all that fast, there must be a set of
natural consequences that makes sense and doesn’t leave anyone in the
emergency room for the afternoon. I’m just not sure what they look
like.
When I get right down to it, I realize that this is precisely what is
so incredibly challenging about this stay-at-home-parent life. So much
of it all runs together and looks all the same. Same apple slices,
same route to school, same stories at nap time, same costumes from the
dress up box, and so on. And yet each and every situation is
different. Imperceptibly so sometimes. But different. Different levels
of fatigue and physical strength. Different moods. Different weather.
Different phases of the moon. Its all changing all the time and yet
consistency and balance are the goals. Complacency is the enemy and there really isn’t much room for… routine decisions.
In the end, she ate 2 more bites of sandwich and then it was time for
dancing. On the floor.
3 Ginger Snaps 