Corbin's Time

I've noticed that Corbin needs a little more quality enrichment lately, so I've tried to add something every day that is just for him.  Not to say that I ignore my son the rest of the day---obviously I don't do that, but I'm making an effort to be more intentional with our time together and add activities that are just for him, rather than having the attitude that I'm "bringing him along" or "entertaining him" while I run errands and such.  I love being a mom, and I love planning this time of day that is just for him.  Corbin learns differently than Reese and Quincy learn, so I often feel like a new parent...and really, I guess I am since I am re-learning how to teach and mother him in a way that he will succeed in absorbing the information and also be able feel my deep love for him.  I can love my child to bits, but if I don't love and teach him in a way that he is able to receive, my love does not benefit him. This special time together is teaching us both.

Sometimes we meet up with other moms and friends and sometimes we don't.  Either way, the focus is always on the kids and doing what they want for their time.  Nothing beats having your kid run up to you smiling and with a super sweaty head to pant out the words, "5 more minutes, ok, Mom?" because he's having so much fun.  Hearing his smile expel a crazy noise of excitement when the wish is granted is icing on the good-day cake.

(The animals on parade.  Corbin loves to line up all of his animals and tell you about each one. He will say, "let's row the animals"...meaning, let's line them up in a row.)

A few of the things we've done for Corbin's time are special trips to the library, a picnic lunch, kite flying, art projects, walking on the lake trail, meeting at the park with friends, cooking together, looking for animals, popcorn and a fat stack of books, doing a surprise service for Daddy, Reese, or Quincy, or putting together all of our floor puzzles.

I'm a lover of multitasking and efficiency. Corbin is at preschool, I have eggs cooking on the stovetop, a baby napping, laundry in the dryer, and the dishwasher running while I blog this.  Corbin is a one-task kind of guy and he wants to decide when it is time to move on to the next activity. He loves to sit and focus on a puzzle, or build something from legos.  He loves movies, he loves cars, he loves playing  with toys in the bathtub (once he's in it).
I rarely just watch a movie. I blog or fold laundry or look for houses or bake a dessert or something at the same time.  I make sure to not distract myself with some other task during Corbin's time that would make him feel less important.  I also make sure not to rush him.
During Corbin's time, we operate on Corbin's time.
At bedtime, during dinner, or right when Aaron comes home from work, we like to ask Corbin what he did that day and let him retell us the events of our day.  It is fun to hear him tell us about preschool or what he ate for lunch.  It's always entertaining to hear the days events told from a 3 yr old's point of view.  "Quincy (tripped on the patio) scratched her leg because he was mad at me and felled down on the patio to come tell Dad I was not sharing the swing."

 Yesterday's adventure was a walk around the lake with some pals.  It was a good day for my little animal lover.  We found some dogs, a crane, squirrels, fish, geese and this lovely 3 ft snake along the trail.

We also stopped and watched a bunch of turtles swim in the lake and sunbathe on several logs. I can't believe I've never noticed all of the turtles before. I usually just run right past those areas and don't stop to look. They were so cute!

I admired the way my friend, Jess let her son explore the steep edge of the lake without any panic that he'd fall over into the deep water.  She knew he was just fine. Maybe I am too much of a worry wart, or maybe my kid's head is big and makes him top heavy enough that it caused me to panic more than usual, but I found myself hovering around him within an arms length while he explored the lakeside ecosystem.  Of all my parenting fears, drowning is one of the highest, especially since having a series of drowning nightmares that haunted me while I was pregnant with Soren. 

So, we explored cautiously on the little cliffs at the lake. He still got closer than I was really comfortable with. Baby steps.

Now, I know from experience that geese are not typically friendly animals that will peck you for food and ruin your picnic, but Corbin seemed to have no problem chasing them around and scaring them.  After observing Jess remain cool as a cucumber as her son explored the steep, rocky hiking trails and the drop along the lake shore, I decided now was as good a time as any to exercise my goal to be more existential in my parenting and let him learn about geese himself. The hard way.  

I figured one of them would have enough and scare him off. Maybe peck at him.

I didn't really expect one of them to actually bite onto his shorts and not let go!  

Corbin ran toward me with the goose nipping at his butt. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "getting goosed".  It freaked him out and he cried a lot. It was funny and sad.

And Corbin learned that geese cannot be trusted to not bite you in the butt when you turn your back.

 Corbin's favorite color is yellow.  He isn't obsessed like the girls were about pink, or anything, but I've noticed that he will always choose yellow over another option.  He asked me why roof of houses are never yellow the other day. I thought it was a strange question.  When I uploaded the pictures from our library date, I remembered that he first glued a blue roof to his house, then later discovered a stash of yellow papers and spent 5 minutes picking through and gathering enough yellow to re-roof his paper house. If I let him pick out Soren's clothes, he will always choose the yellow shirt. He requests a yellow bowl, and yellow crayons for art projects.  Last night, when I tucked him into bed, he kissed his blanket edge and said, "I love you yellow blanket".

I love you Corbin.