1:1 Time When There’s More Than One

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Does this sound familiar? Wake up to the sound of my 1 year old crying. Shuffle back and forth between my daughter’s rooms while trying to get everyone dressed and out the door for the day. Spend the day at the office. Sit in traffic trying to get home. Walk into the middle of my husband trying to get dinner on the table and the girls 90% of the way to pulling every toy they own out into the middle of the living room.

Play the negotiating game trying to get my girls to eat while getting up from the table to get things from the kitchen 10 times through dinner. Attempt to clean up the mess that dinner tends to become. Tag team with my husband getting the girls through bath and bed time. Do a couple things around the house, get things ready for the next day, and attempt to be asleep by midnight.

<<<Wake up the next day and repeat>>>

The days seem to run together. Throw in a bought of illness or weekends that my husband or I have something to do for work and it feels like I barely spend any time with anyone in my household let alone one on one time with a child. My 1 year old still takes up a lot of my energy and attention when we are all together, so lately I have been trying to make an effort to carve out time to spend with just my 4 year old daughter.

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While she is basically the same child she has always been, these little excursions have been a reminder of the girl she is becoming. Sitting across the table from her. Just her. Letting her talk about what she wants to talk about without having to attend to another child. She is a little calmer when she doesn’t have to fight for attention.

I took her with me to shop at a clothing store and it actually took me by surprise how complimentary she was. She would select items off the rack and hold them up to me and say “you look pretty Mommy.” Trying on some jewelry, she would hold up my hand to other people and say “doesn’t she look beautiful?” I found myself instinctively wanting to deflect the complement but instead just let myself feel proud of this caring little girl. I hope she always sees people as beautiful.

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I scheduled dentist appointments for us at the same time recently but hers finished before mine so she sat in the chair next to me commenting to my hygienist that I was being “so brave” and “doing such a good job” getting my teeth cleaned. She is used to hearing these phrases in the cartoons and shows she watches but she genuinely means them when she says them.

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I understand it can be stressful to be 4 years old and the adjustment from me being a stay-at-home mom for the first 3.5 years of her life to an out-of-the-house working mom has not been the smoothest road. My daughter, my mini me, and I already butt heads at times since we are so similar in temperament. I know it’s still a long ways away, but I don’t want her to become a teenager that I don’t know so I am going to try to make these opportunities a regular occurrence as see grows up.

Some of the ways I have been able to incorporate one-on-one have been:

  • Doing something that we wouldn’t be able to do with a younger sibling in tow. For us, it has included getting our nails painted together and going to see Disney On Ice.
  • It doesn’t need to be expensive to be interesting. Sometimes we stay a little after my daughters dance class is over and watch the pre-professional level dancers in the other studio.
  • Take time for show and tell. I try to regularly linger dropping her off in the morning so she can tell me what she has been doing in class. I also really try to make it to school or class activities.
  • Make a task something special. Add a little something to an everyday errand or appointment to make it special like breakfast at a restaurant before or going to a special treat after.

If you have more than one child, how do you connect with them individually?

 

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Michelle
I am a mom of two little girls (a preschooler and a toddler), wife to a member of the US Air Force, and work full time for the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. After a few years as a stay-at-home mom, I recently went back to work and back into my first love, the performing arts. When I'm not at work, I am trying to figure out how to keep two little ones happy and entertained, and I blog at Domesticating Michelle. Originally from Miami, Florida, I first moved to Dayton when I got married in 2006. After a couple of years away, we returned with a child and a second on the way in 2013. One of the beauties of military life is that you never know how long you'll live somewhere so you might as well enjoy as much of it as you can. I love that Dayton has lots to offer families and kids with plenty for couples to enjoy on date night, too. I am often up way too late on Facebook or blogging and can be spotted with a cup of coffee nearby as a result. I usually have a camera around my neck and am more than happy to show you 100 pictures of what we did all weekend. What I like best about motherhood is getting to experience things through my kids eyes and that, in trying to expose my kids to new things, I have to be ready to do them, too.

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