quiet outside time

It would be fair to say that school has not gone as planned as Guthrie has been ill. We're still dealing with her symptoms - more on that in a later post. It's been a challenge for me to remain flexible and work on my perspective; taking a few steps back toward the bigger picture. The one that tells me we have time, this is only September. I'm making the effort to embrace this season. The extra cuddle time, story time, movie time, opportunities to parent through 'roid rage as it were. Steroids are giving me this glimpse of how it would be to parent a child who cannot physically hold still. Whose emotions are volatile and super close to the surface. I feel badly for Guthrie that this medicine impacts her ability to focus and concentrate on activities I know she loves. I also feel bad that the one thing she physically needs to do is the one thing she cannot - run and run and run. For the present time she's limited to about 40 minutes outside every other day with the neighbors. Not that they're a bad influence or anything but it's like she just cannot help but follow them as they run back and forth through our adjoining yards to the corner and back and forth and 15 minutes of that and she's covered in angry red bruises. And that's not falling or twisting an ankle, just plain running.

So, in the spirit of embracing our season and knowing that our kids have an innate need to be outdoors I'm trying move from outside time being about large motor playing to a more fine motor and quieter time. Birdwatching, rolly polly and worm digging, making mud pies, slowly, slowly. Today after telling the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff I filled our sensory box (an under bed storage rubbermaid container) with sand, stones, and small plastic animals. Guthrie immediately began building a stone bridge for the animals and though I suggested we add some water for a river they were pretty content with just sand and stones. Bridge became road became house became a dividing line between Guthrie and Laithe's allotted sand. A very enjoyable way to spend a sunny fall morning. And I didn't even once had to caution her not to run or to be gentle with her feet --- it was so, so nice.