It's like I planned this

You know how I wouldn't let Isabelle watch TV for a week this fall? It has been driving me crazy how much I let her watch tv, how incapable she seems to be about entertaining herself and how clueless I am about what to do about it. My main plan when we were not watching last fall was to come up with alternative things she could do. I sort of settled on coloring/painting and playdough. She needs me to set them up but they seem to entertain her for quite a while. So whenever I started to feel she was watching too much tv I would suggest one of these and she usually happily did them for a while.

Well all the sudden this week I am noticing that she is asking for those things over tv. In fact I was trying to get her to watch tv the other day so I could do some stuff and she didn't want to! Somehow we have turned a corner. She has learned to play on her own and enjoy her toys and really, really, really is obsessed with the new paints I bought her for her birthday.



This is what I remember from parenting Jake, you knock yourself out over a subject feeling like you are really just banging your head against the wall and then suddenly you look up and they have matured in the direction you were pointing them. It is funny how these lessons tend to stack up. I just commented on my SIL's weight loss blog this week about how the seemingly pointless one pound at a time all adds up and she will soon be at her goal. I told her it was an object lesson for parenting and a few days later here I am experiencing that exact lesson in my own life. It is these little triumphs that keep me going towards the bigger goal of raising godly children who will go out into the world and serve Him in whatever they do with their lives.

Up next: I tackle some 4 year old bible memory...Or teach her to clean her room...eat vegetables...stop whining...be patient...