In an effort to help Smoosh find some calm within him, I have been very deliberate about everything I do with him, helping him to notice small details of the day and taking time to engage him in what he is doing so he is not moving through his day with listless, insane energy. This is an exhausting process and by the end of the day I am absolutely mentally and physically exhausted, but it is incredibly rewarding to see him find some calm and peace finally. The moment I slip, he slips and is back to his crazy man self. As we become more attuned to our routine of calm though, he is able to slip back into an engaged state easier and easier. They are small and slow steps, but they are definitely steps in the right direction.
With this type of new outlook towards how I go about life with Smoosh, I went grocery shopping, truly the Herculean task for all moms with young children. The typical goal of the experience is to get in and out those doors as fast as possible, with everything on the list (if I actually remembered to bring it), and with as few things broken, chewed on, or opened by the kids. Leaving the store, I rush to the car to get the kiddos, who are usually loud and restless, into the van so I can close the doors and enjoy a few quiet minutes while unloading the groceries into the back. This week, I had a shopping trip that was truly unlike any other shopping trip I have ever had before. With the thought of being intentional for everything that was put in our grocery basket, Smoosh and I went about "inviting" our fruits and vegetables to come home with us. We asked the apples if they wanted to come home and be our food. We carefully examined each tomato to determine which ones were going to be for our sandwiches and which ones were going to be for our salads. We took time to remember the lives of the turkey and fish that once were alive and now were packaged, trying to imagine them eating grass (I like to be optimistic about that one for the turkeys...when older I'll give the truth and maybe he can be a vegetarian like me!) and swimming in the ocean (uhhh...ditto for the fish). I gave him clues about what ingredients we needed to have to put our sandwiches on or what could we find that was yellow and monkeys liked to eat. We even thanked the soap for coming home with us so we would no longer have a stinky Daddy (not that Daddy is really that stinky, but the elderly lady in the aisle loved that one when Smoosh said it). Every item we put in the cart was talked about before it went in.
When checkout time came, it was with great joy that I watched Smoosh talk to the grocery bagger, Jorge, and tell him about our tomatoes and apples. He explained what we were going to be eating for the week and how lucky we were to have the food we picked out for our dinners. There was no climbing out of the cart or grabbing for the candy in the aisle. To say he was calm would be a stretch, but he certainly was engaged and was being a part of the process. The grocery trip took much longer than it normally did, but I walked out of the store in a peaceful state myself, feeling calm, happy, and incredibly blessed for the food and children I had sitting there in my cart. Smoosh sat happily in the back of the cart, snuggled in with all of the bags, talking to the apples before grabbing one and eating it. Ok, a little odd, but again, its small steps we are making here with the big man and there were definitely some steps made in that grocery store today towards a more calm, engaged Smoosh.
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