Once upon a time, there was a nap
A lovely nap.
Before the nap came the screaming. Before the screaming came lunch. A patchwork lunch because I learned that it is possible to burn chicken nuggets in the microwave. The patchwork was made up of leftover carrot-ginger soup, a banana, an orange, a bagel with almond butter, and leftover roasted sweet potato & butternut squash cubes. Some of which got eaten. Although the highlight of lunch may have been when LP discovered that she could create designs on her soup by pouring water into the bowl.
So there is a nap and that is my cue to take up my laptop and write something.
Ah yes.
And yes is the topic of the hour.
I'm paying a lot of attention to yes these days. Improv taught me to have a heightened awareness of saying "yes" to offers and to growing a more complicated understanding of saying "yes". I'll go into yes more deeply another time but to even take it on its most surface level - the quite literal yes is relevant today.
Because there was a lot of no today.
And no and no and then some more no.
I think it is fine and of course at times important to say "no" to a toddler. And I try to be honest with myself about why I'm saying "no" - is it because of safety? is that safety concern a real one or my own neurosis? is it for my convenience? is it because this is a teachable moments of sorts?
When I notice life has become "no" heavy, I try to pause and evaluate. What is going on here?
This morning I didn't take that time to pause, to evaluate and I didn't take the time to make room for "yes" experience. Not even a few minutes of yes which really, sometimes is all it takes to regain some equilibrium around here.
And if I had to guess, that contributed big time to the pre-nap screamfest.
Before the nap came the screaming. Before the screaming came lunch. A patchwork lunch because I learned that it is possible to burn chicken nuggets in the microwave. The patchwork was made up of leftover carrot-ginger soup, a banana, an orange, a bagel with almond butter, and leftover roasted sweet potato & butternut squash cubes. Some of which got eaten. Although the highlight of lunch may have been when LP discovered that she could create designs on her soup by pouring water into the bowl.
So there is a nap and that is my cue to take up my laptop and write something.
Ah yes.
And yes is the topic of the hour.
I'm paying a lot of attention to yes these days. Improv taught me to have a heightened awareness of saying "yes" to offers and to growing a more complicated understanding of saying "yes". I'll go into yes more deeply another time but to even take it on its most surface level - the quite literal yes is relevant today.
Because there was a lot of no today.
And no and no and then some more no.
I think it is fine and of course at times important to say "no" to a toddler. And I try to be honest with myself about why I'm saying "no" - is it because of safety? is that safety concern a real one or my own neurosis? is it for my convenience? is it because this is a teachable moments of sorts?
When I notice life has become "no" heavy, I try to pause and evaluate. What is going on here?
This morning I didn't take that time to pause, to evaluate and I didn't take the time to make room for "yes" experience. Not even a few minutes of yes which really, sometimes is all it takes to regain some equilibrium around here.
And if I had to guess, that contributed big time to the pre-nap screamfest.
posted by Susan at
2:58 PM
7 Comments:
I think that is a VERY tasty-sounding lunch. Yum!
Never you mind about chicken nuggets. My dad will never live down the fact that once, when he was in charge of my sister, he totally incinerated a bunch of chicken nuggets because he read the oven directions and put them in the microwave for TWENTY MINUTES.
:o)
I know exactly what you mean about NO. I often try to monitor my nos...but as my boys get older it's more than just about safety etc. Sometimes the answer just has to be no (no binkie in the living room, no crocs in the snow, no pudding for breakfast...) The challenge is always to spin a different word or phrase (binkies upstairs, boots are for the snow, and you can have pudding after dinner.) But, my goodness, it is exhausting to monitor myself all the time. I fail a lot. I say no a lot. I think that just knowing that I am aware of it helps a little.
I think that LP had a great lunch. I am impressed by the variety in your fridge.
I see "no" syndrome a lot in classrooms... In fact, I'm often surprised that I'm still surprised when I see a teacher shut a kid's idea down for no reason other than it doesn't fit into some idea of what school is supposed to be like, when I'm in fact trying to draw them out of that. Frustrating.
That said, I sure say no to my niece a lot, which begs the question, what kind of parent would I be?
I work in a five star resort. We are not allowed to say no. We have to put every negative in the affirmative- which is to say, instead of "we are not allowed to say no" we say "we are solution oriented." I have a 10 month old. What fun-! a five star retreat day for the baby with no Nos. I must try it out.
I love your blog. Thank you.
Emily -I love that idea of giving LP a five star retreat experience! It has been fun to brainstorm what that might mean for her...I think it is also a really great frame to reorient my experience when I'm feeling "oh no, not this again and again and again..." Perhaps there is an "improv-spa" post coming.
It also makes me think about how the practice of improv for adults is about reciprocal "yes" while the practice with our small ones is really about us using the skill so they can experience it. Just as it is important for adults to be able to say "no" (and so often hard for women to feel comfortable with doing that), it is so important in development...I think we just have to work a little extra to keep offering all the possibilities of yes! As the improv saying goes (very loosely quoted) "No leads to safety; yes leads to adventure" (Keith Johnstone, I think)
Trina - so right on about awareness. I think my stance isn't that we should say "yes" to everything but just that as an overtired parent the "no" autopilot takes over so easily....My hope in using improv is at least keep making active "yes" choices and who knows, maybe have a "yes" autopilot instead, because seriously, the important "no, no, NO" moment are pretty obvious (glass in the mouth kind of thing)
Amber..that reminds me of when I was attempting to lead a improvised story activity for a group of Russian-speaking seniors. Since my Russian is quite limited (hello, how are you, good, very good, etc) I had a Russian-speaking staff member translating. Unfortunately, she had very strong ideas about what appropriate interactions were and would not translate things the participants said that she didn't approve of! Her heart was totally in the right place but she just didn't get that in improv, every response can be inspiration.
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