This morning, my girls raced down to our au pair’s bedroom to gather their stash of cards for me. They brought them up to me and some flowers too! That was novel to receive flowers for Mother’s Day. Mia had made her card during her past two sessions of occupational therapy. Zoe made one card in art class and another on her own.
Zoe was recovering from strep throat, which sadly arrived on Friday night, so we had a kind of quiet morning. Zoe and Mia got crafty with some headbands and at one point, Zoe wanted to show me all of them and asked me to post the picture – so here she is in all her headband glory!
In the afternoon, we managed to get out of the house and Mia buckled herself into her carseat for the first time. She’s been doing the top buckle for a while. As I went to help her with the bottom buckles, as usual, I found her grinning with her own accomplishment, “Mommy, I did it all by myself!” I’m pretty excited about this milestone too. As Mia gets more and more independent, I find we are entering a new era where both girls can help quite a bit more and so some of the labor of mothering shifts.
We ended the day with a brief visit to a small carnival that was set up near our house. Here are the girls in the little car ride that they enjoyed twice. All three of us also got to go on the Ferris wheel twice. No pictures of that though as I couldn’t figure out how to take one without worrying about dropping the camera.
After the carnival, Mia didn’t want my help with her buckles and she managed to get two of three together but was struggling with the final one as she was tired. She asked for help. But, now that she knows she can do it, I expect she’s persist until she is fully independent with buckling. Unbuckling is still challenging for her and I’m okay with that.
This post is part of my streak of posts in the month of May to spread awareness about pediatric stroke. Please consider donating to support Children’s Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, an organization that has helped our family with support and information.