This week’s Geekasaurus is brought to you a day late by mom brain. Mom brain – it’s what makes Tuesday feel like any other day except Tuesday so that you miss your deadline …
Anywho … Alice is a toddler and apparently, this means that she needs to walk everywhere. She won’t hold hands unless she wants to. We bought one of those baby leash backpacks (I never thought I’d need one) and it’s fine, as long as you go where she wants to go. The upside is, she carries her own snacks now.
I went into parenting with a pretty “go with the flow” attitude and I think it’s serving me well. I didn’t have a birth plan. Good thing, too, because it would have been chucked right out the window. Alice came flying into the world as fast as she could because she wanted to be born right away. There was no stopping her. She’s marched to the beat of her own drum ever since.
I still feed her vegetables and make her wear clothes when we go out in public. Maybe I let her wander a little further away from me at the park than some other parents would. Maybe I hide spinach in her morning blueberry peach smoothie. Maybe I make sure she wears loose rompers that are a tiny bit too big because that’s what she prefers. As long as she’s not in danger, I pick my battles very carefully.
I was gifted with an active, independent, confident child – coincidentally the opposite of myself. It took me 30-ish years to learn the lessons that she seems to inherently know. I may be showing her how to use a fork and accidentally teaching her the word s**t, but she’s teaching me more and more every day. She’s teaching me how to be fearless and how to jump in with both feet. She’s teaching me to climb those obstacles that get in my way. She doesn’t give up. She doesn’t quit. She finds that music and dances. If I could have half of her determined swagger, I’d be able to conquer the world. Maybe that’s her destiny. She certainly seems determined enough.
So, for now, she walks everywhere she goes. Nobody puts the baby in a stroller. Because she’ll scream and cry until you let her out so that she can march on her own, unique path.
If you like Geekasaurus, why not follow Geek Mom Kali on Instagram? It’s mostly comic stuff and stupid food pictures but sometimes she’s kinda funny over there …
