Sages

After preschool the other day, I was ecstatic to learn a new tip from the preschool teacher, whose children are now grown, and another mom, who has five children.   If it happens to snow, I'm never quite prepared.  It seems that every year someone's glove has a hole.  Or I don't have enough gloves.  Or someone's glove falls off and fills with snow.

So here's the tip I learned:  Layer a magic stretchy glove, then a rubber glove, then another glove on top.  That way, their hands stay dry and warm.

I kind of like the idea of laying a magic stretchy, a rubber glove, another magic stretchy, and another rubber glove.   I think I'll experiment with that this year!

The other idea they had was to layer a long sock, then a bread bag, then another long sock.

You may be asking why I don't just go out and buy the real stuff from REI.  With four kids and a husband in school, sometimes you just have to cut some corners.

So back to the title of my blog post:  Sages.

When I was a new mom, my husband and I were still in college living in family dorms.  The only people I really spent time with were other new moms.   I'd see them at church. I'd see them at library time for babies.  I did activities with them, such as taking my three-month-old to the museum.

I remember discussing parenting with these other moms.  These phrases were common:    "Have you tried . . . "; "I read in this book . . . ";  "I think that . . . "

It wasn't until my second child went to preschool that I realized I had it all wrong.  That it wasn't mothers like me who I should look to for help.

Our preschool teacher was an experienced mother.  Her children had grown--I think her youngest was in middle school at that point.  And she had truly wise advice.  From her, I learned to set my behavioral expectations higher.

My paradigm shift led me to become a close observer of other mothers.  I quickly realized that even experienced mothers may not have the perfect answer.  But a conglomeration of ideas from experienced mothers might just be successful.  Even now, I watch other mothers carefully and learn from the little things they do.  I learned from one mother how to speak in a kind voice.  I learned from another mother how to get my kids to practice the piano.

Sometimes I learn what I don't want to do also.  I learned not to make empty threats from one mother.  And not to attach labels to children from another (for example, this one is the smart one;   this one is my rebellious one.)

The more kids someone has, and the more successful those kids are, the more sage I consider them.   And the more I spend time looking at how they do it.