You hear it all the time. “He’s just a kid, kids have short concentration spans”, or “they will develop dedication, in time”, but the reality is they already have. I’m not talking about doing their teeth, or getting ready for bed, doing chores or cleaning up their toys. That stuff isn’t important to them. I’m talking about things that mean something to them.

Today we took a quick trip to Aldi, hoping to check out some toys, because we wanted to reward the patience during running errands of my darling Chip and Dale (who, I have to say, I’m considering re-naming Felix and Oscar, because they are the genuine representation of television’s “The Odd Couple”). We bought Christmas cards for each of them to give their friends. Well… They have come home and insisted on all of the names of their friends to be written on their cards. I was exhausted, and even my insistence on getting a break didn’t stop them. While I took a break, my dedicated 5yos signed every single card with their names. I keep getting interrupted to write yet another name, adding required whispering as someone else in the family leaves the room, and they want to secretly ask me to write their name. Now that’s dedicated concentration on a task!, and let me tell you, it’s been more then 2 hours! This level of dedication might only be matched by a toddler asking over and over for the same thing you keep saying “no” to.

The Christmas cards I bought last year are still upstairs somewhere! I usually buy them, figure I will write them later, find them under something, figure I still have weeks yet, then find them several days before Christmas and figure it’s too late. I USED to love writing cards. I won’t go into why I don’t anymore, but I do admire my boys’ level of dedication. It’s not even December yet, so I have 2 weeks to look forward to being asked every day “do we take our Christmas cards yet?”

.