Exhausted, I slumped into the chair. Our daughter toddled over to the DVD player and started pushing buttons. I blurted, \u201cNo, no.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked at me, smiling, almost smirking, and pushed a button again.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t feel as though she was testing me. I was watching a lesson, a teacher in action.<\/p>\n
I learned that my exhaustion was a distraction away from her innocence and wisdom.<\/p>\n
I refocused.<\/p>\n
Her innocence was open to learning new things. In her wisdom, she was asking me what new thing to learn.<\/p>\n
This meant I wouldn\u2019t have to say \u201cno, no\u201d so often.<\/p>\n
I got up and found something for her to play with. Then I read a book to her. Then she played on her own.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the word \u201cno\u201d dropped significantly from our vocabulary and as our daughter grew up, neither of us had the habit of saying \u201cno\u201d to one another.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exhausted, I slumped into the chair. Our daughter toddled over to the DVD player and started pushing buttons. I blurted, \u201cNo, no.\u201d She looked at me, smiling, almost smirking, and pushed a button again. I didn\u2019t feel as though she was testing me. I was watching a lesson, a teacher in action. I learned that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,1],"tags":[1100,1099,1098],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community_world","category-relationships","category-smorgasbord","tag-breathing-better","tag-healing","tag-reading-with-kids"],"yoast_head":"\n