Hanging with Meg

We are on spring break this week, Meg and I. This is either the advantage or the disadvantage of using the college's preschool, depending on how you look at it. The advantage is that I don't have to manage childcare with a break that doesn't match up with my breaks. The disadvantage is that I don't get to catch up on my grading and planning over break.

Spring has come here and with it lots of pleasant outdoor activities.

We went for a walk near our house and ended up accidentally sliding down a hill on the remains of the slippery snow. So we headed home to change our now wet pants. Meg with her four year old fashion sense had also insisted on wearing her pink polka dotted dress shoes on this excursion and now want to take off both them and her wet socks. I managed to convince her to only remove one sock. On the way back to the house she decided to run and then proceeded to trip and fall on the gravel at the side of road leftover from plowing.

Meg tends to overreact to any setback right now. I've heard it is normal for a four year old, but I have to wonder if it is a reflection of the strong emotions she sees from my husband and I. It also doesn't help that I don't have the largest ability to remain calm when she is upset either. So a small fall with a slight scrape yields screaming. Lots of screaming. One of my neighbors stopped by to make sure she was okay. I had to convince her to keep on walking since she has gotten to heavy for me to pick up without hurting my shoulders. Eventually she started walking while crying.

After a few moments, I asked her if she knew why there were rocks on the road. So we got to have a conversation about sanding the road, plowing, and what the road is made of. No more crying now. Now she wanted to collect rocks. I let her collect as many as she could carry and finally got her home. She had forgotten about the fact that her pants were wet and she had a scrape. She wanted to wash off the rocks.

So we get in the house and I convince to go upstairs to change before washing the rocks. I changed clothes and headed downstairs. Then I called up to her to make sure changing was going well and had a brief momentary panic when she didn't answer immediately. However she was fine and came downstairs, washed her rocks, and insisted on putting them out for display for daddy when he got home.

A good afternoon well spent. Now I just need to find someplace to store the rocks.