Independent Play

In a recent series on marriage at a church, our pastor mentioned that the most stressful time in a marriage is generally when you have kids between birth and kindergarten. I don't think this is necessarily because the parenting is harder because every age brings its own challenges and rewards, but because the kids at this age are so needy so it is very hard to spend time on yourself or your marriage or anything else. Jason and I stay very very busy because of this since someone always needs something. However, we are definitely seeing some improvement of late. Not that the kids are ready to be unsupervised anytime soon (sidenote, our pediatrician says some kids as young as 6 can be okay staying home alone for say a trip to get milk real quick. That seems crazy. I can already tell you Joshua will be in no way ready to be alone at 6. He's a "Whoah, I wonder what these matches do. They must have been locked in this cabinet because that's where we keep the most fun stuff" type of kid), but today they all played for awhile just entertaining themselves. Since the ability to play independently is a core value in our family, it made me really happy.