{"id":14175,"date":"2014-12-29T07:32:47","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T12:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/todayslegacy.wordpress.com\/?p=14175"},"modified":"2014-12-29T07:32:47","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T12:32:47","slug":"beyond-disney-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/2014\/12\/29\/beyond-disney-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Disney World"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read an article<\/a> this morning during the routine 6am nursing session. The author spoke of casting off the pressures that pinterest, blogs and facebook posts put on being the over-the-top parent to your children. The need to have the most creative, perfect vacation or birthday party or day of homeschool for that matter is ridiculous. It becomes about our status and quite honestly, our pride.<\/p>\n

But I found it sad that the author failed to remember times when her parents played with her and her siblings. I get that family dynamics require parents to work from home at times. I get that family dynamics sometimes require both parents to work. I get that the house doesn\u2019t clean itself and dinner doesn\u2019t cook itself. But I still remember my \u201cpicking up an extra shift\u201d Daddy staging pillow fights with us. I still remember my \u201creturning to school to get a better job\u201d Mommy baking cookies with us, even inviting in the neighbor kids to share in the flour mixing. Sure there was a the balance of my sister and I walking home from school together and coming to a quiet house where enjoy a premade snack of carrot sticks from the fridge or celery with peanut butter that Mom made before she went to work. And then we\u2019d proceed to entertain ourselves for an hour or so until Mom got off work.<\/p>\n

It was a balance. We still went to the children\u2019s museum, climbing the rock climbing wall alongside of Daddy and racing Mom in the timed sprint display. And I remember self-entertaining on Summer days or during Mom\u2019s study sessions.<\/p>\n

I strive to be a parent of equal balance. Yes, I expect my little girls to play independently at times. Their imaginative delight should not be tied to me entertaining them. But I miss so much if I don\u2019t don a princess crown regularly, or instigate a pool noodle sword fight. I miss too much if I don\u2019t wrestle them in a game of tickle fight until our sides ache from laughter at our floor frizzed hair. I miss far too much if I don\u2019t use the curb as a balance beam or dance unashamedly to a Disney song with a twirling ribbon.<\/p>\n

What do I miss? I miss expressing my value in doing life with them. That their hearts matter. Right where they are. In whatever little imaginative phase they choose to live in in that moment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying this author\u2019s Mom didn\u2019t love her. HA! Not saying that at all. I\u2019m just saying that in the swing back from our culture\u2019s need to make Motherhood about a Mother\u2019s status and pride, don\u2019t forget to dabble in your children\u2019s play regularly. No don\u2019t buy their love with vacations and regular showerings of toys until they have so much stuff that you can\u2019t even play with it all. Materialism creeps in so quickly.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t miss out on the opportunity to just sit and read together and play together. Because just like I tell my little ladies, \u201cwe\u2019re the only family we\u2019ve got. So let\u2019s do life together.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, I want more than the title of Mother, Provider or Caregiver. And it has nothing to do with me. I want to leave a legacy in their hearts that we walked through their childhood together because their worlds mattered so deeply to me that it was worth the sacrifice to make them my dreams.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. They are such a blessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an article this morning during the routine 6am nursing session. The author spoke of casting off the pressures that pinterest, blogs and facebook posts put on being the over-the-top parent to your children. The need to have the most creative, perfect vacation or birthday party or day of homeschool for that matter is… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,11,40,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-a-mom","category-being-a-stay-at-home-mom","category-everyday-schooling","category-living-in-their-world","clear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayslegacy.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}