My Connection to Play

  

For me, play was fun! My sister was born when I was 4 years old. So, until then, I had a range of toys to myself without having to share with anyone. I played with my barbies and dolls by myself for hours. My mom used to put music on for me and leave me in the family room for hours, just playing alone. She would occasionally check on me, but otherwise, I was completely happy being alone. 

Play then in 1988 vs play today in 2020 is significantly different. Back then, we didn't have technology to keep us occupied. We had crayons and markers and dolls and Legos and sticks and mud. We were able to use our imagination to play outside and not have to worry about the big, scary world. Where I live is not a bad place, but I don't feel comfortable leaving my children outside by themselves to play. My mom would send us outside in the morning and we knew to come home at dinner time. Children can't play like that anymore. It is sad, quite frankly. Children don't get the chance to play freely anymore. They are constantly on the go, because of their parents jobs. Just speaking from experience, my son is at school with me all day. 9-10 hours daily. We get home and I rush to make dinner and pack lunches and the kids need their own down time to come down from the events of the day. I usually end up letting my daughter veg in front of the television for a while because she has been busy and virtual school is hard. And my son wants to do everything that his big sister does, so they usually end up together on the couch. Sometimes cars and trucks and dolls are involved. But, I'll be honest, I am just too tired to play with them sometimes. And then I feel guilty,  and it becomes a downward spiral. At the end of the day, I know that they have played at school and it is okay for them to have an evening off. 

For adults, play can be anything that is distracting from reality. I think most adults struggle to play and be mindless because we have lost our imaginations. Unless we are engaged with children on a regular basis, or are parents ourselves, our imaginations only take us so far. Until we remember what it is like to just sit and color or build a tower with blocks, our imaginations won't take us very far.

Relationship Reflection

 Relationships are a tricky thing. They can be positive or negative. For me, I have many good, solid, positive relationships. The majority of these are people that I know love and care about me. The rest are professional relationships and I know that these people have respect for me. For me, a relationship is important because it shows that both parties have respect for each other. There is love between both parties. Each party has the other's best interest in mind. There is a mutual understanding that no matter what happens, both parties are there for each other.

The photos below illustrate just a few positive relationships that I have in my life. 

These girls are my tribe. We have known each other for almost 14 years. We have been co-workers and managers, best friends and sisters, and at the end of the day, no matter what is going on in any of our lives, we are there for each other. We have not all been together since August 2019. The top four of us had planned a night together (finally!) for last Saturday night. Samantha, the bottom right, moved her flight home from St. Louis up a week and surprised us. Seeing her and all of us being together filled all our hearts, especially mine. You see, Samantha has been my mentor for most of my professional career. I always joked when I first started working for her 13 years ago, that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I'm slowly working my way there, but it was amazing to sit and talk with her about my job and about our lives. 

Katie is in the middle, right under me. She is my best friend, my sister. (Also my daughter's godmother.) We are family. There isn't much more to say about her, except that I love her more than anything in this world. When we say that we are family, we truly are. We joke that one day we will end up in an old folks home together, and I am most certain that we will!

Some people say their parents are their best friends, but mine truly are. They are the type of people that I call everyday; Mom in the morning and Dad in the evening. My parents have helped me overcome some of the hardest moments in my life. My mom even quit her job to stay home and help my daughter do virtual 2nd grade. My best friend jokes that I am spoiled, but I know it is because I have the world's best parents and she is just a little jealous. :)

This photo is my team at work. (We are dressed up because we celebrated our first annual Goddard Games; like field day back in elementary school!) The owners of my school are kind and are real people. The two other directors and myself are an immaculate team. The three of us work well together: yin and yang, but three of us. I have been going through the hardest transition of my life and these people stepped up and have been there to listen and cry and hold my hand and be decent human beings. I could not ask for a better team of people to work with. Kayte and Scott, our owners, are extremely fair. If you scratch their back, they will scratch yours. And honestly, we all need someone to be on our side in life, and I feel that the five us are on each others' sides.

Over the years, I have had many friendships that I thought were real. Unfortunately, they weren't. They were one sided. They were unbalanced, in that each of us was at a different part of our life and couldn't understand what the other one was going through. And then, there were the relationships that fell to the wayside because of one of the significant other's actions. "Breaking up" over a spouse's feelings or actions is truly a heart breaking experience. But, I am one of those people that believes that things happen for a reason and at the end of the day, if something is meant to be, it will happen, no matter what.

All of my relationships have molded me into the person I am today: a mom, a daughter, an educator, a leader. When a relationship is negative, it makes you open your eyes to the good and see how you can improve everything else. I like to think that because I have had so many good (and bad) relationships along the way, I have formed qualities to improve my current partnerships.