Parenting and Our Children's Emotions (Day 14 of 30)

Now that my daughter is approaching two, I notice her experiencing more of a range of emotions. She's happy, sad, frustrated, disappointed, goofy/silly, etc. I've also noticed myself anticipating her emotions and responding accordingly. Sometimes this is awesome because she gets me so excited with her happiness, but sometimes it's hard because I feel her sadness.

Lydia loves our pets, but at the beginning of the summer, we had to put down my oldest (and her favorite) cat. While I was sad because I had to part with her, I was more sad because Lydia was losing her favorite cat. Obviously Lydia has long forgotten about her (as this was about 8 weeks ago), but the hardest part of losing Emmy was experiencing Lydia's loss.

Emmy's last day with us

Well, today was another loss for Lydia, even if she doesn't fully understand it.  Lydia fell in love with her cousins Kayla and Kyra this summer. She'd wake up in the morning and say "Kay" and "Ky," hoping they'd be at our house that day. We went on vacation together at the beginning of the summer and she wanted to do everything with them. We went out to dinner to say 'goodbye' to them last night - they come down during the summer and every other Winter Break, but they live in Ohio the rest of the year - but I decided that wasn't enough. So today, we spent the day together. Lydia, Kayla, Kyra, and I went to Young at Art Children's Museum. We all had a genuinely great time! The museum focuses on recycling, so there are lots of different areas set up throughout with different projects kids can make using recycled materials. The girls made some nice projects, and I had fun making a few, too. Here are some pictures:

Making a recycled craft

Making Japanese kites

Digging for artifacts

Mr. Potato Head

Making recycled puppets

Leaving the museum

Out to lunch Mexican-style

 We went out for lunch after, and everyone enjoyed their food. I hope Lydia remembers her cousins and looks forward to seeing them this Christmas. I'm glad that she had big girls this summer to spend time with and look up to. I never had cousins when I was little (I just had my mom, dad, younger sister, one grandma, and one great aunt), so it's nice to watch her enjoy their company so much. We'll have to frame some photos of them together this summer and hang them in her room :-) I think she will like that.