Mommy Perspective

I learned something yesterday. Here's the story:

Last Friday, Gabe's mom took the girls for the afternoon so I could (hopefully) finish painting Kiera's room. The poor thing has had a slightly less-than-half painted room since (gulp!) January of last year. Yes, that is over a year since I have worked on it. So, it was time to get it done. Only, I didn't... Gabe and I decided to go on a date before he went to work (MUCH more important than painting, don't you think?) so my time was cut a little short. And that is why I didn't finish :-)

I only had a 2-3 foot wide section, floor to ceiling, to finish. Not that much, right? Well, the reason I hadn't worked on it in so long was because Kiera is how old? Right, 22 months. So, I can't work on it when she is awake, and I can't work on it when she is sleeping, so... I couldn't work on it. (In my mind.)

Yesterday I decided -OK, this is only maybe 10-15 minutes of painting. I have everything ready to go, so let's do this. I talked to the girls, told them what I was going to do, told them they needed to stay in Melia's room and play together, and that I would be done in just a bit. With only two interruptions - poopy diaper and phone call- I did finish. And it looks great! (It is kind of an Orchid purple color.)

My lesson? To not approach training my children with the foreshadowing of failure. I haven't worked on painting because I KNEW it would fail. But when I knew I could finish, knew I could hear them if something was wrong, knew Kiera couldn't open the door herself, we were successful. And even if we weren't, I should have looked at it as a training session, not as a success/failure venture. But a good training session for me it was :-)

The ending? Melia says "OH MOMMA! You haven't finished painting my room yet!"

Why? Her color is ocean blue on the Nemo theme. I didn't want to finish it. Two walls is dark enough :-) Now, how do I convince her of this?