xeryfyn's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Julia: Growing out of movie time You see, I often have little thoughts as Julia grows up around me, stunning me with her daily developments and little and big accomplishments. I often even write them down in little places and forget that I have them so I've decided to re-organize them here every so often so I can recall with the vividness they deserve in a month or a year or ten. Thus launches a new subset of entries "Julia:_____" and hopefully you will get a glimpse into this life that I have the privilege of watching first hand. Let me know how they strike you, drop me an email or better yet, join my notify list!When we had access to the wider world of television, I worried that Julia would become too enamoured with it--that she would join the multitudes of millions who find pleasure in Teletubbies, who demand to hear Barney's latest CD on repeat, and just become yet another consumer fraught with commercialism and rampant desires. And, while "want?" is currently her favourite word, she applies it fairly equally to all aspects of her life. As it turned out she did like some aspects of TV, mostly Telus commercials and bad karaoke competitions, but for the most part she happily toddled off to sit in her book pit, rummage around in her zoo and climb upon her rocking horse. She found equal pleasure in playing with the curtains, imitating the barking dogs in the neighbours yard and sorting and re-sorting the DVD collection as she did dancing to the home improvement show's opening music. As she grew older and more easily attentive to the allure of "the box", we moved and found ourselves once again cut off from the realm of cable TV. So she gravitated to the things we had--DVDs mostly, Lion King first, an endless array of the circle of life, followed quickly by "Finding Nemo" and then snowballing to include all of the animated movies in our household. For a time it didn't matter what was playing, as long as one of them was on. Her vocabulary expanded to include movie talk, sometimes favourite character inflections and clips marching out of her mouth at any random interval. Her ability to spot tiny details within movies and then expanding into the greater world of reality never ceasing to amaze me to this day. I contemplated restricting her movie watching, sure that I ought to be providing more stimulus as a new stay at home mom. Figured that every mom worth her salt was up at morning's light, making homemade play dough and laying out crafting ideas for the day while planning and serving three perfectly balanced meals with a smile. OK, maybe not that bad but close. So maybe my illusions of being a SAHM were a bit unrealistic and impossible to measure up to but something nagged at me to change the "sleep until noon, laze around in pjs eating cereal until dinnertime" routine that we often found ourselves playing out. Gradually though, as the weather has begun to shift and the sun shines more often than the moon, I've seen her tire of the TV and often find her in her book pit or rooting around in her animal box. I find her toys paired up, face to face, in every nook and cranny, along her bed and upon the couch, sharing a snuggle and a kiss, the importance of which is clearly delineated in her imaginative play. I delight in her ability to transfer her affections between all her toys and share in the joy of the quick affections of a toddler, impromptu hugs and kisses so fierce I sometimes need to take a bit of break to recover. So I draw back a bit from my worry over her TV watching habits and even contemplate getting basic cable again, for my own sake in keeping in touch with the weary world that hasn�t yet slowed down to the snail pace life that I seem to have taken up rather suddenly. outside my window I hear the neighbourhood kids emerging from their wintry nests to tumble screaming with delight into the pathways and grassy knolls around our home. I take Julia outdoors to feel the sun upon her face and the joys of the wind in her hair. She remembers these moments with an increasing vividness and ferocity that insists in a not as small toddler voice while standing at the door tearfully "open! outside! coat on? shoes? peeeeeze?" and how can I resist? I muster the energy to let her loose on the world, away from the movies and characters that once her so captivated, and into the thrill of growing up and discovering everything else life has to offer.
12:31 a.m. - 2004-03-31 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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