I haven't even kept up with my blog like I would like to. I think my problem is I want to do too much. I need to keep it simple and just aim for posting at least once a week, not five times a week. Okay, moving on.
Today will be a story about what happened this morning with this guy.
This morning, P's preschool had their annual Fiesta Day with a float parade to kick off the day. We made a float, and by we, I mean me. He did pick out what to put on it, but I did the hot gluing. P was pretty excited about it and was walking around the house with it before we left for school. Then we got to the actual parade site. And that he doesn't like so much. It's loud. There are lots of people, and the attention falls to him. P does not care for these situations very much at all. His teachers tried to coax him into walking his float. I tried. And when I tried, he picked his up float off the floor and shook it around in protest. Well, we sat out at that point. Here's the thing. I don't care if he doesn't want to march his float around in the parade. I really don't. It's just a preschool Fiesta parade, and if doesn't want to, then that's cool. Except I felt embarrassed and frustrated. And I hate that.
After the commotion of the parade, P went about his day and had a super fun time with all the Fiesta activities the preschool plans and puts on for the kids.
I thought about the morning and P not wanting to march in the parade, and had an epiphany of sorts. Why was I upset? Why did I care?
I don't like that attention either. Just like my 4-year-old, I'd rather not have that. And that is so totally okay. I so want to know what my boys thrive on. It's also really important to understand what makes them shut down. Now, I'm not saying that they should totally be sheltered from what makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes they'll just have to deal, and that's life. But I don't want them to feel like their personality traits are some type of shortcoming. So, this morning was a sort of lesson for me. I already knew all this deep down, but it's good to organize my thoughts about all this.
Let me also just say that P has the most wonderful teacher, and she, along with a couple other teachers, smiled and said nice things this morning. I love that preschool and those awesome teachers.
After thinking about all that today, I ran across a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. The book sounds fascinating to me. As much as I like to talk and be social, I think I may be more of an introvert than not. Same goes for my boys. I'm interested to see what insight this book provides to better understanding introverts. I also watched this video, in which the author makes some good points. I'm looking forward to reading this. Does anyone else lean towards being an introvert?
