How My 2-Year-Old Changed My Perspective One Morning

You’ll often hear music playing at our house. It typically starts right after breakfast. My toddler will request a song, she’ll ask Alexa to play it, and she and her sister will dance around the living room. I’ll join in some days between cleaning up our breakfast, and then we’ll leave the music playing in the background as we go about our activities, always inserting mini dance breaks throughout the day.

Some mornings are tougher for me. Maybe I went to bed too late the night before because that’s the only time I sit quietly without someone needing me, maybe I had to check on my kids during the night and then had trouble falling back asleep, or maybe there’s just something on my mind. Whatever the reason, there are some days that I have to find the strength to match my kids’ energy or enthusiasm.

On one of these particular days, as I mustered the energy to clean up the breakfast table, my one-year-old’s highchair, and the floor that had been rained on by pumpkin bread crumbs, I heard my toddler’s enthusiastic voice: “Are you ready…?”

She was talking about the chorus of the song that was playing. These are the words I say to my girls right before a song’s chorus begins; “Are you ready…?” followed by, “Here it comes!” I say this to create suspense and build tension and anticipation for a song’s most intense and emotional moments.

On that particular morning, I was not truly listening to the song playing, but my toddler’s words stuck out to me. I’m unsure who they were meant for – her sister, me in the next room, or perhaps she was saying them to herself. Nevertheless, they cheered me up right away.

You raise your kids in your own way; you pass along your own quirks, phrases, and characteristics. They become their own individual, but parts of you are ingrained in them. I realized that your kids will excel in areas that you don’t on certain days and within certain moments and that they will possess strength when you may not. Your kids can pick you back up. We focus so much on always being there for our kids and we may forget that they will be there for us, too.

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My daughters are 1 and 2 years old and they have already proven this to me. I spend the majority of my day teaching them how to understand their feelings and emotions, how to identify them and cope with them. I teach them kindness, compassion, and understanding, yet there have been times when they have been the ones to pick me up.

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Those three words my toddler said out loud that morning as she pumped herself up for the song’s chorus meant so much to me. Those words are meant to create excitement and that’s exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. Through the monotonous cleanup, exhaustion, and mental worries I was experiencing that morning, my toddler’s words brought me happiness.

I heard myself in those words and they reminded me of who I am when I’m at my best. I just needed a little reminder that morning.

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Needless to say, I put down what I was doing and danced around the room with my girls as I put whatever was bothering me aside temporarily. It was exactly what I needed.

Don’t forget to dance your worries away.