Wisdom Wednesday: Lessons from my parrot.

Today Cooper is two-and-a-half.

Say wha?

Me and Coop get each other, we always have. Since he was a baby I swear to you he could understand what I was thinking. Nowadays however, he just repeats what I say. Scratch that, EVERY-THING we say.

About two-months ago his language exploded. He's still not great on verbalizing words correctly all the time, but boy, does he verbalize. 

It's funny to hear what you say repeated back to you. It makes you hyper-aware of how you talk and what you are saying; because as soon as your words are out that little brain is processing before you even realize what you said.

And then there's how I, as a Coop and Ben's mom, act. How I respond to stressful situations, how I communicate with them and others, how I behave ALL THE TIME. I mean, how much pressure is that? I have my moments, y'all.

I've realized first-hand the impact my words and actions have on my child.

The whole "do what I say not what I do" thing won't fly either, because kids are much smarter than that. It's that time in parenting that you want to be the very best version of yourself, because of your child. You want to model behavior for your kids that are the character blocks of who you want them to become. And my friends, it's impossible to build with blocks you don't have. The whole "fake it 'til you make it" thing (love that saying by the way, got me through a lot of things in my professional life) doesn't fly when you are raising PEOPLE. 

You have to take a good look at yourself and make improvements when you see something you don't like (judge less, listen more, choose to look at the positive side of things) those are some of mine, to name a few.

Alas, reason #4012394 I love being a mom.

It truly does force you to improve yourself, and all because you love another person so darn much.