Happy and dirty

 A mom friend of mine recently told me about an experience she had where a childless acquaintance complained about dirty-faced toddlers. I think it was in agreement with something the acquaintance had seen on Facebook. My friend didn’t know whether to laugh, be offended, or try to educate the person. As most of you know, toddlers are dirty much of the time. Here are some photos that I happen to have of the last few days:

And I don’t know if you can tell, but in that last picture Linden is wearing two hoodies on top and only tights on the bottom. 

Right now Maren has been doing “remote learning” for the past month, and we are not quite sure when it will end. Covid case numbers spiked here, and have been holding steady but not really declining. One issue I didn’t think about at all is the tendency for parents to “help” too much with schoolwork when everything is done at home. I am sure this is old news to many of you, but a huge barrier to learning for some kids is parents wanting to make sure work is done correctly. We were falling into that trap at first, and I am grateful that Maren was able to get mad and say “stop, it’s *my* schoolwork not yours!” Right you are kiddo. 

 I think that over time we have gotten better and better at letting our children try things out, fail, and learn by failing. It is hard to sit back and watch our babies get frustrated, but they will just get more frustrated if we try to help, so we are better off just leaving the area and helping clean up the mess later. I love our happy dirty kids ❤️