Perfect Moment Monday

On the 4th Monday of each month we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. The next Perfect Moment Monday event will be on March 26.

To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:

Follow Write Mind Open Heart.

Between the Sunday night before and the Sunday night after, write up your own Perfect Moment.

Use LinkyTools on her website to enter your name (or your site/blog name) and the URL of your Perfect Moment.

Visit the Perfect Moments of others and let the writers know you were there with some comment currency.

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Moment #1 - Time Out: She has been very good most of the day, but we are in a hotel for the weekend and she is starting to push boundaries as any almost four year old will do.  We are playing outside the room on the patio in front of our room and she starts to play with the surrounding fake plants that make up the decorations of the hotel.  I tell her no.  She ignores me.  I tell her if she does it again, we will go into the room.  She does and we do.  I start to tell her why we are now not playing out there, and she starts to be defiant and then she tells me to "shut up!"  Of course we are on Time Out mode.  She sits in the hotel desk chair.  After a sufficient time, I come up to her to discuss why she was on Time Out and to let her out of Time Out.  She understands, but then asks me to leave her alone (before I can say her Time Out is over).  So...she slowly pouts in the chair and I decide to take the quiet time to read a book.  After a while I can see she is coming out of her sour mood, but she is quietly thinking.  And sliding off the chair as only a toddler can, to the point where her head and arms are on the seat part, her feet on the ground.  She slowly moves the chair back and forth in a circle/semi-circle.  Her thumb in her mouth.  I continue to read my book.  We our both quiet and while this started out as a punishment, by the time it is over...I can tell that we have both used this time to think, reflect...and start again.

Moment #2 - Time Out: I barely saw him this weekend.  Well, except for the few times he came in and said "Mom, I am going to go check out the Vendors Table; Mom, I am going to the video game room."  He had games to be at and play, he was on his own, yet with us.  He was safe and happy and having fun.  And while I did have a lot to do with it--most of the time, I was not a part of it.  He is becoming his own person without us.  Bittersweet but perfect.

Moment #3 - Time In: The second night in the hotel room...my turn to watch the kids while husband plays a late night game.  I read her some books, she snuggles a new stuffed animal.  She falls asleep next to her big brother.  And then I let him pick a pay per view movie from the hotel room menu.  It is not a movie I would have picked.  (There is a small part of me that wishes I could have picked from the several movies I saw, but I did say he could pick a movie!)  We watch it together in mostly darkness (so as to not wake her up).  He lays with pillows propped up next to her; I similarly propped up in the bed next to theirs.  We pop popcorn and watch the horror movie.