What I Did With My Toddler Today

Today I set an hour and a half to just focus on T., my 2 year old. Turned off phones, closed computer, no texts, no distractions at all for that time period. I gave myself the task of FOLLOWING HER LEAD on everything and not asking her to follow mine AT ALL. Usually it’s a back and forth but I felt the need to EMPOWER HER, to give her room to INITIATE COMPLETELY for a while. Well, she put on her winter coat and kept it on for a half hour, she led us to her dollhouse to “put the baby to sleep”, to her wooden kitchen to eat a pretend birthday cake while she improvised a birthday song, she had us stand in the pantry together and just stand there, she had us dance to Jewish music while running in small circles, we drew with crayons for 3 minutes, she put kid chairs in the middle of the room and had us sit on the chairs and fall off them in interesting ways, she pretended to be asleep and had me wake her up by blowing air on her face, she nursed for looooong periods of time (usually I end it), she took my hand and led me around the house saying “come Mama, come.” She was very clearly THRILLED to be getting my full attention as verse as me breaking it up with phone calls and cooking and cleaning, and after a while, we both entered a state of FLOW and EASE. My nervous system went AHHHH. I find when I try to play with her AND do lots of other things, I get stressed and overwhelmed and sometimes end up feeling like I suck.
I know it is hard to find the time to do this but I think even a half hour a day of this kind of CHILD-LED PLAY is HUGE for kids because they are almost always forced into adult’s agendas, timing, and ideas. I was surprised at how long and short T. took for things, and how often I wanted to interrupt her to tell her to go to the potty, or eat, or how much I wanted to suggest the play go in THIS direction or THAT, and how I had to let go of my agenda over and over again in order to give her the room to lead us.
Children are oppressed and that’s a fact. My girl is my teacher so how can I learn from her if I don’t let her lead? Lastly, I want to mention that T. did not push on my boundaries AT ALL for the hour and a half, which for a 2 year old, is kind of unheard of. I think it’s because she felt so FREED UP and SEEN. That’s my theory, I’m going with it.