Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Little Things Big Lessons

With all the crazy inside time and water and lack of schedule... Ayden Jane was a little nuts this morning. She needed to get out and run around and swim and play until she dropped. It just calms her. Calms her physically and calms her mentally. Pretty sure that's true for all of us but she can just bring it to a whole new level.

So, she and I walked our mile and half. It didn't really even put a dent in her energy... Gary was my hero and took her to the ocean. They swam and were crashed by waves and played with the dogs for an hour. Ayden Jane's smile is bigger, eyes brighter and entire disposition wonderful.

After all this she headed down to the neighbors to play. Shortly there after I got a text that read, "KG gave Ayden Jane a piece of candy. Should I be worried?" My response was no, but please send AJ home so I can give her an earful...

Ayden Jane came through the door and I let her get out her side of the story. Her friend told her that it was made of apple. We all know that Ayden Jane can not be fooled that easily unless she wants to be so I went with the question - Did you know what you were eating? She answered no, not really. I made it very clear that if she did not know what it was then she obviously did not know if it was safe to eat so she made the wrong choice. Next question was, did you need to eat anything at all? Her answer was no, she wasn't even hungry-just curious. I added that I know it is hard to always make the right choices but if she wants the freedom to go her friends than I have to be able to trust she will make the hard choices. I made it very clear that if she can't do so she will be staying home for a good long while until I feel like she is able to make good choices. Losing independence is a fate worse than death for my independent little soul.

She agreed that if she does not know what something is she will ask an adult or text mom. 

Next we talked about how these sorts of situations will come up and that I know her friends are not trying to hurt her, just being nice and sharing with her. She said sometimes she just wants to take something because she doesn't want to make a deal of it. We talked about things she can say in response. Plain old no thanks...  or I don't know for sure what's in that so I can't eat it, lets go play. She liked that.

In the end, one small piece of apple candy is not going make a bit of difference so hopefully we have learned a great lesson in a safe way.

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