Those big round eyes look up at me under her bangs, a half smirk finds her lips, and she says in her sweet toddler mispronounced voice “Sorry mommy.”  I turn to wipe up the milk, making sure she doesn’t see the smile that has crept to my face.  How can I stay mad at that sweet face, and she knows it. This happens countless times a day.

I started to wonder, why do we expect so much from our kids?  They are still learning.  They are supposed to explore their surroundings, learn from trial and error.  Why should my daughter apologize so much for being a kid?

A mess is just a mess, it can be cleaned up.  Does it drive me bonkers when I have to clean up the same mess fifty million times a day, YES!

Why can’t we just let our kids be kids at times, why do we try to push this prefect behavior on them? Let kids be kids! Let them run around, let them yell and use their voice, let them make a mess, let them play in the mud. I try to remind myself of this daily.

Of course don’t just check out of parenting completely, you do need to teach them and parent them.  However, I realized I need to let go of the reigns a tad.