One of the troubling tasks in life is to find ways to avoid stress and do something regularly that makes us happy. The catch is that some of these items in life that make us happy have an expiry date.
One such item which has an expiry date is the time we spend with kids because they grow up so fast and no more remain kids. When they grow we are faced with many new perspectives of growing up that don’t exist when they were small kids.
Waking up a 5 year old on a weekday can be a real challenge and often stressful. But we don’t have a choice and we have to do it. The choice we have is to work around that stress. When I used to pick my son when he was 5 year old I also generously give him around 5 to 10 minutes to sit wrapped up in my hug and a blanket.
We take this time to talk about some of his favorite cartoon characters and if any of them paid a visit during his dream last night. We also checked what might be the fun stuff at his school that day. Here he is mostly the listener and I have to be the talker, until he is excited enough.
Interestingly every day along with the busy schedule of getting myself ready, I used to look forward for these few minutes, though I am not sure if he used to look forward for the same thing. Today he is 14 and not be the little kid he was back then and time has taken away that joy away from me.
But even now I daily drop and pick him and this becomes our moment alone to chat or sit next to one another and drive for 20 minutes… Some days are stress when there is a pressing need at work or he is not getting ready quickly in the morning and you have a big meeting to attend… but I look forward to them….
There are some stresses in life that can well be turned to moments of real joy.
Categories: Enjoying Life and Work, Parenting
Penpositive Outclass 
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