Finally She Said Yes

She finally said yes. I could hardly believe my ears, when I heard the three-letter word slip out of her mouth. I was so happy, that I could have caught a bird and brought the stars down from the night sky. I had been waiting for this moment to finally say "yes" for a very long time.

I know what you're thinking, and maybe you've already imagined, that I'm living one of the most beautiful moments of my life, as I get down on one knee and ask my partner to marry me, and I excitedly take the engagement ring out of the little box and tears of joy roll down my cheeks as she says yes and I put the ring on her finger.

I have to disappoint you, because that's not what this is about. True, that happened years ago, but this is about something completely different. If you have a toddler, then you know, that saying yes for the first time can feel like a redemption for you. If you don't have a toddler, here's why it feels so much easier.

As a full-time daddy, I am with my little daughter practically all day every day from 7am to 7pm for 12 hours. God forbid, I don't mean to complain, but it can be exhausting to spend all day looking after, feeding, walking, learning, playing and everything that goes with raising a child. All I say or ask, the answer to everything is no.

When I can see, that she doesn't know what she wants, that's when I have the hardest time. Then there are a lot of options, that I can throw at her to make her happy. Here are my questions: "Should I read? No. Should we go for a walk? No. Are you hungry? No. Thirsty? No. Want to play a game at home? No. Do you want to draw or color? No."

The answer is no to everything, and when she doesn't even want to watch cartoons anymore, that's when I'm out of ideas. Then comes the crying and I have no idea what's wrong with her, because nothing is good for her. It's almost out of control, because the crying turns into a tantrum and it's hard to calm her down.

About two weeks ago, she answered yes to one of my questions. The happiness was indescribable. There are almost no words. You can't imagine how much it makes my daily life easier. I finally know, what she wants, but it's also, because she knows what she wants. Since we can remedy the situation and we both know what she needs at the time, the crying and subsequent tantrums are not even close.

She is understanding more and more about what is going on around her and as her confidence grows she is doing more daring things, because she is not yet learning the consequences. A few days ago she had one of these tantrums. At such times, there is a so-called time out corner, where she has to stand until she calms down. This still has a new effect on her, so she willingly stands in the corner and we count to 10.

I asked her afterwards if she knew why she was standing there and if she knew that what she did was not a good thing. She said yes. Then without asking she ran to me and hugged me. I was shocked, because that was the first time she had done that. She calmed down completely after that and we calmly continued our day.

I showed no surprise. I took it completely for granted, even though it had never happened before. She had learned something new. She learned, that she did something wrong and that's why she had to stop playing and go to the corner. The hug was an apology of sorts. At least that's what I think. It also made me very happy and I now know how to handle it next time, when something like this happens.

Of course, I'm not saying she doesn't say no at all anymore. For example, when it's time to come home from the park, because it's lunch time or dinner time, it does take a while to get her going home. I have a strategy for that too. I start telling her we are going home about 15-20 minutes before. The answer is of course no, but that's enough time for her to realize, that she has to go home at some point.

Although sometimes it is totally unpredictable, because sometimes she says enough is enough and let's go home. This is the rarest case it has to be said. Of course, it is also true, that if she is playing with someone and they start to go home, she will also start to go home without a word, as if there is no point in staying there any longer.

The good thing is, that she has her own choices now and can choose which park to go to or which outfit to wear for the day. I give her the choice even if it takes longer to get dressed in the morning, because it takes her time to choose the outfit, but I don't mind, because it teaches her how to be decisive, which will be a great advantage later in her life.

Thankfully, being in the community is not a problem, because she is very friendly with everyone and not shy at all. Whether it's children her own age or older than her and she's not even averse to adults either. I am happy about this, because she starts nursery in September and I can already see, that she will have no problems with that.

One thing that I think will develop later, than it should is complex speech, because she is hearing two different languages at home. I speak Hungarian to her and her mom speaks English, so that will delay it a bit, but already she sometimes mixes the two languages.

These are the thoughts I wanted to share with you today. I hope it wasn't too boring. Thanks for reading.

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