It was one of those days when I lapsed into a maternal stupor. I struggled with everything. The
\nshrieks of my children made me lose my patience instantly, regardless of their actual intensity; my
\nown voice resonated in my ears, unpleasantly shrill and hostile, and then I just couldn\u2019t care
\nanymore as indifference surfaced. I saw no hope for myself on that day. Normally, I consider myself
\nan expert in the field of saving the day multiple times: I usually fight tooth and nail and repeatedly
\nreset myself to make the most of the hours ahead. This time, however, I could not muster a strong
\nenough act of will to start anew. All I wanted was to make it until the end of the day, like a car with
\nflat tires that simply tries to make it to the nearest garage.<\/p>\n
The weather outsider was indecisive, somewhat gloomy. In any case, I couldn\u2019t let the kids play
\noutside.<\/p>\n
To complete the deplorable image, I was wearing an old torn sock on my right foot. I did not feel like
\nchanging or mending it. What for?<\/p>\n
I was an appallingly boring companion. I was constantly busy doing things without getting them
\ndone to any satisfactory degree \u2013 cannot recall what things exactly, I was probably trying to do the
\nusual household chores and childcare-related tasks\u2013 and all my children were hearing from me was,
\n\u201cjust a minute\u201d, \u201csoon\u201d, \u201cnot now\u201d, \u201cI can\u2019t do it now\u201d in an irritated or resigned tone. I was
\ndesperately trying to shake off my kids\u2019 communication attempts as if they were highly annoying
\nswarms of flies. I did not bring an ounce of creativity to their life. I felt guilt: my perception was still
\nsharp and I knew full well that I could have played out that day a hundred times better.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, I realized, children still manage to find a way to make progress even if their parents That bad day in particular showed me that when my children see that I\u2019m not the best dialogue The day was saved. My smile became even more radiant when, a bit later, I found my child copying to me for instructions: he is aware of the fact that I don\u2019t know any Chinese. He decided to brave the It was one of those days when I lapsed into a maternal stupor. I struggled with everything. The shrieks of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nexperience some sort of temporary failure. It is because children are self-propelled and capable of
\ndiscovering things on their own. I am not writing this to absolve myself of the sin of wasting a day or
\nto encourage extreme forms of laissez-faire<\/em> parenting. I am writing it to console myself and other
\nparents that a temporary failure is not the end of everything .<\/p>\n
\npartner or I avoid interaction altogether, they can simply retire into a corner where they are free to
\ndelve deeper in their own resourcefulness and tap into their own creativity.
\nEventually, the unhoped-for salvation of the day came, and it warmed my heart. My eldest came up
\nto me and asked for a needle and a thread. He declared that he wanted to learn to sew. I brought
\nthe requested accessories and explained the basics. I told him how to bring the thread and the
\nneedle eye together, tie a knot, decide on the the direction of sewing etc. After my short tutorial, my
\nson took off my torn sock from my foot with affection (perhaps it was just his endearing attention,
\nbut it felt like pure affection to me), and mended the big hole on the big toe with the utmost zeal.
\nExcited by his success and tickled by my words of gratitude, he hopped upstairs to fetch another pair
\nof torn socks, this time from his brother\u2019s drawer. He asked me to get another thread and needle
\nready. Next, he wanted to know how to make a knight\u2019s coat for a lego figure. I showed him how. I
\nwas pleased and eager to help, encouraged by his enthusiasm. He made another lego coat,
\nsomewhat clumsily, but all by himself.<\/p>\n
\nChinese characters for \u2018house\u2019, \u2018moon\u2019 and \u2018tree\u2019 from a children\u2019s book. This time, he did not come<\/p>\n
\nnew project on his own, carried by his curiosity of the great wide world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"