fly above it

After a day of questioning my whole mothering approach with my 21 month old daughter, I realized at the wee hours of the night last night, that I completely missed the point.  Here I was so worried that I have a little girl who just won't eat (nursie, nursie, NURSIE!) and who seems to rule the roost.  She won't go to sleep.  She just wants to be latched on to me.  What have I done, I thought.  My happy little girl who seemed so easy and pleasant has turned fussy and bossy and difficult.  Yesterday, I found my way to my sit spot hoping to realize something...I heard the calls of the birds and thought: they are above all this worry about how well she eats and how demanding she is.  Deep breath. 

Alex woke up at midnight with a fever.  Ear infection's back.  How could I miss that?  Poor baby.  Man, I was so convinced that we were in a serious bad pattern.  The catastrophic nervous thinking that had me envisioning Alex as a teenager.  Deep Breath, good Lord, let it go.  As my mom would say: "let it fly on by."  To parent like a bird flying around, keeping watch from the bird's eye view, not tangled up in the weeds and thorny briars.