The joys of parenting a spirited beautiful little girl...

Today while Pea was having her nap in my arms I was alternating between reading my new book "Unconditional Parenting" by Alfie Kohn and reading threads on a favorite forum. I came across a thread about Attachment Parenting with a ton of drama about what mums believe attachment parenting to be, and naturally it got me thinking about what Attachment Parenting means to me.

Attachment parenting to me means listening to my child's needs and responding with love and compassion. It means treating my daughter like a person, like an equal and allowing her to form a emotional bond that she can rely on for a lifetime. It also means unconditional love. I am learning about Unconditional Love and Unconditional Parenting in Alfie Kohn's book right now. It is opening my eyes to many new approaches in parenting and really affirming what I believe in, it is reminding me to trust my intuition and to remember that if something doesn't feel right when I am doing/saying it, that I need to stop. With that being said, Pea and I had an amazing day, even though we woke up at 6 am tired and are still somewhat under the weather. We managed to get things that I needed done accomplished and all of her emotional and physical needs were met with hardly any whining or crying. Sure, some things took a bit longer, like when we needed to get her shoes on and she didn't want to, but we ended up out of the house anyway and it only took a few minutes longer for her to decide on her terms that she wanted to go. Same thing happened with the car seat but with a bit of patience and understanding on my part she got in willingly and we sang the whole way home.

It sounds all lovey dovey and wonderful when I write it out now but there were some trying times in the day, times when I bit my tongue and inhaled and thought first before I spoke but I got through them and getting down on her level and working it all out with her sure pays off. These are things I work on daily, some days are harder than others and sometimes I end up saying or doing things I wish I wouldn't have but its all a learning curve and I am always taking the time to apologize to her when I act inappropriately. I find my biggest problem is doubting myself, we have a bad day and I attribute it to something I have done or not done and that begins the cycle. The thing is, when I look inside myself and I really think about what type of parent and person I want to be for my daughter I *KNOW* I am taking the right path for us.


And before I go just for a little laugh a few favorites of Pea's toddler lingo:

A muffin is called a "Mutton"
A crab says "Pinchy-ton!"
A panda is called a "Pandan"
A drink is called.....A "DINK!" hahaha
And with that I have one more short little story to share with you.
Daddy was making breakfast the other morning when Pea came out of our room shouting "DINK, DINK DINK!" right at him. After about the 5th time Daddy says "Stop calling me that!" I laughed so hard while trying to explain to him that all she wanted was a drink!!