parenting

The Most Important Thing My Five Year Old Taught Me About Writing

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

The Most Important Thing My Five Year Old Taught Me About Writing (Photo: Journal with smiling sloths on it)

“What was your favorite thing today?” I asked my then four-year-old at bedtime. Earlier that day, we had our monthly “special afternoon” together, where we went to an indoor playspace with a giant artificial mountain and stopped at Starbucks afterwards for hot chocolate.

“Getting my journal!” he exclaimed. After hot chocolate, we had picked out a journal for him decorated with smiling sloths. Although he can’t write more than his name yet, he had been telling us stories and asking us to write them down. Instead of pieces of folded paper scattered all over the house, we thought it would be better to write them down in one place.

Hearing this answer warmed my writer’s soul to the core. It was completely unexpected and completely genuine.

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How a Dandelion Helped Me Look at My Son With More Love

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

How a Dandelion Helped Me Look at My Son With More Love (Photo: A fuzzy dandelion)

Peeling the stem of a dandelion in half and rubbing it between my fingers, I say to my older son, “I used to do this when I was a little girl.” I let the stem curl up in my hand, then hand him the green spiral. “I used to pretend they were magic.”

He touches the slick interior, rolling and unrolling the piece of flower. Plucking another dandelion, he says, “It feels like Jasper, like fur.” It’s true – the dandelion fluff does feel a little like my sister-in-law’s little terrier.

As I rub another stem between my fingers, I drift back to childhood.

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Why I Knew My Fiancé Would Be a Great Dad

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Why I Knew My Fiancé Would Be a Great Dad (Photo: White man snuggled up against a white boy in bed with the covers pulled up to his nose)

Holding the hand of a little girl with my fiancé holding her other hand, I thought, “Perhaps this is what having kids is like.”

That’s because the little girl was not our daughter. She was one of the three girls that were part of the summer camp where my fiancé, Chris, and I were volunteering. To be honest, those three girls were the entire summer camp. But they were more than enough. Besides being the first kids to break my heart, they gave me a peek into what my fiancé would be like as a father.

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Why I’m Taking Parenting Advice from a Cartoon Turtle

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Why I’m Taking Parenting Advice from a Cartoon Turtle (Image: The cartoon turtle named Crush from the movie Finding Nemo)

 

“Let’s start school in a year or two. Clearly you’re not ready and you’re not coming back until you are. You think you can do these things, but you just can’t, Nemo!” said a puppeteer holding a cartoon fish. I immediately burst into tears. Heavy weeping wracked my body as I tried to stay quiet.

“Are you okay?” my husband leaned over and asked.

“Noooo,” I whispered between tears. I absolutely was not okay. Because that cartoon fish dad was me and I was him and we were both utterly unprepared for our kids to be starting school.

I did not expect to have a parenting epiphany at Animal Kingdom in Disney World, but there we were. (Although maybe I should have, considering I had one last time we were at Disney World.)

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What Will Never Change as a Mom

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What Will Never Change as a Mom (Photo: Dark room with animal decorations and crib)

Rocking in the big, yellow chair in my two-year-old’s room, the sweet folk melodies of the Fleet Foxes fill the room. The nightlight shines in the corner, throwing light and shadows on the beige walls.

My son’s little head nuzzles into my shoulder as his eyes close. I rest my lips on the top of his head, feeling his fine hair tickle them. I feel his warm weight leaning into me. Shifting, he climbs up onto my lap facing me, curling his legs under him. Then he’s back to sitting on my lap, his head leaning onto my chest. Every once in a while, he unceremoniously squirms and kicks the arm of the chair, trying to get comfortable. Eventually, he drifts off, his breathing becomes steady and his arms limp. I wrap my arms around him, cradling him as I place him in his crib.

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What I Remember When My Son’s Silliness Frustrates Me

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What I Remember When My Son's Silliness Frustrates Me (Photo: Young white boy with a stuffed frog on his head)

“What did you do at preschool today?” I ask my four-year-old son.

Silence. And then, he yells, “Boobie-chang sweet barbershop!” So much for anything resembling a coherent answer. I will never have any idea what that phrase means.

On other days, I ask that exact same question and I get, “We learned about grasshoppers! Daddy told me that there are grasshoppers that don’t fly!” And we’re off to the races. It’s a barrage of information, but it’s a lucid and informative one.

It can give you whiplash.

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How Parenting Brings Out the Best Contradictions

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

How Parenting Brings Out the Best Contradictions (Photo: Small white boy looking at a pretend giant honey pot)

Hugging my son, I felt him shake a little as thunder clapped and the lights cut out. A booming voice declared, “Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you prematurely. The real chills come later.”

“That’s the worst part, honey,” I swore to him, squeezing him close. As we walked into the Haunted Mansion’s “doom” buggies at Disney World, I kept glancing at him, taking his emotional temperature. As we rode the ride, I pointed out little jokes and kept up a jovial attitude to help him enjoy himself.

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What Happens When We Trust Kids’ Imagination?

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What Happens When We Trust Kids' Imagination? (Photo: Young white boy hugging the character of Chip, a giant chipmunk, in front of a table with food.)

“They’re just people in costumes, right?” my four-year-old asked me about the Disney characters months before our trip to Walt Disney World. “Yep,” I answered, being truthful but not elaborating.

Yet despite knowing that, my son jumped up and down upon meeting them, hugging and high-fiving Chip, Dale, Pluto, and Mickey as they came to our table for a character lunch.

How did he manage that? I wondered. He knew they weren’t “real,” but his enthusiasm was genuine. I like “meeting” the characters too, but not with that level of joy. I’m always seeing layers down, wondering about who is in the costume or the logistics of it.

I think our responses reveal something important that most adults miss: kids can teach us so much about how to balance reality and imagination if only we let them.

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When Parenting Shows You How Little You Know

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When Parenting Shows You How Little You Know (Photo: White young boy smelling flowers in a giant pot)

“I don’t know what to do.”

As a mom, I’ve said those words more times than I can count. When my kid’s fever has spiked – again. When I was so delirious with sleep deprivation that I thought I might be hallucinating. When my kid got out of bed for the tenth time that night. When I was nursing our younger son and our older son was desperate to sit in my lap.

“I don’t know what to do.” Six words that mean so much.

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