Figuring out how to let them just go...`

I've come to a realization today.  I took both of my children to the local children's museum.  This is an activity I would normally cringe about.  Me, by myself, with both of my kids, at a museum.  I was prepped for it to be stressful.  So I did what should have been second nature.  I just let them play. You may be thinking, "Well, of course, why wouldn't you do that?"  The answer is that I don't know why I haven't thought of it before.

Let me explain.  When my daughter was an only child, we had pent up all our hopes and dreams on this one little human.  I had waited for her for so long and when she finally got here I wanted to show her the world.  We dragged that little 1-3 year old girl all over the place.  We took her hiking, to the zoo, to different museums, festivals, nice restaurants and out of state vacations.  We did this in an attempt to make her life as full as possible.  It sounds great, except when we went to these places we expected her to be on our schedule.  When we, the parents, decided that she had done an activity long enough, we would push her along with promises of bigger and better things to see.  We didn't do it to rush her really or to be mean.  We did it because we felt that if she didn't see absolutely everything to see that she would miss out.  We now realize she doesn't really remember any of it at all.

Here we are with kid #2.  We've not been to near as many places with my son as we have with my daughter. One reason is because he just doesn't have the same demeanor.  He gets loud and irritated easily. Also, we just don't have the money to do all those things.  I do feel like he's missing out.

Back to my point, today I took them to the children's museum...by myself.  We went for museum day so it was free for us to go.  I finally did the opposite of what I normally do.  I just let them play.  Since I wasn't paying I didn't care if they spent the entire time playing at one station.  I didn't care whether they knew there was a whole upstairs section or not.  We spent four hours at the museum.  Most of that time was at the water table then the Lego table. Both are things they can do at home.   But guess what?  It was the most relaxing time I could have had with both kids.  So, what did I learn?  For God's sake just let them play.  They don't have to see everything and it's more likely to be a fond memory than a disappointing one.