What If...

I think you know me by now to be a very free-spirited, easy-going type of mother.  I don't stress myself out by setting unrealistic expectations on my children or myself as a mother.  I just focus on precious moments with my family.  Otherwise, I would have never made it out alive as a pregnant mother of a toddler living through a total house remodel that left our daily lives without any kind of structure or normalcy. 

I encourage Diego to learn and explore at his own pace.  I don't place too many nit-picky restrictions on him, but he does often hear "no" from me.  Like "No, you can't have candy for breakfast" or  "No, don't kick the dog!" or "No, you are not allowed to play on your tablet until after your noon nap."  And he understands and obeys for the most part. (Except for the candy - those no's automatically lead to temper tantrums.)

Diego is allowed an occasional soda or more-than-occasional piece of candy, he sometimes falls asleep after us watching Youtube videos on my husband's iPad, and we don't prohibit him from running or riding his tricycle in the house. We let him be.  He is a child, after all.  And he's had some amazing progress all on his own.  His two recently-learned words are "Candy" and "Apple", but he isn't stringing two words together yet like "Candy Apple" which he should be by now.  (OK maybe not exactly "candy apple" but you know what I mean)

And lately I find myself thinking "What if..." and I never wanted to think that.  What if.....  What if I had tried a little harder to push through his maniacal need to be the only one holding and using a book, and tried read him books more often?  What if I spent a little more time with him writing and drawing instead of watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse?  What if I tried a little harder at carrying out a longer monologue when "speaking" to him so that he would have had more exposure to words and sounds.  There are so many things that I could have done.  But that is the past, and "What Ifs" are my present, and my future (Friday) includes me sitting in a waiting room as Diego starts his speech therapy at two years of age. 

"What if"  you click below?

Then you automatically cast a vote!  And Shirley gives Diego a candy apple...