Little P’s first sensory play

Today I went with my wife and daughter for our first sensory play class. The theme is about pancake. It started with reading the book Pancakes, Pancakes! By Eric Carle. Then there is activity to try touching milk and egg that is broken. The third activity was to decorate real pancake with raisin, banana, and jam. That was when things became messy as my daughter played with the jam. The fourth activity involved two stations where the kids can play with real flour. I thought it was messy enough. But apparently another station was to play with real flour mixed with milk, and breaking egg. 

I am grateful for my wife for introducing such activity to both my daughter and I. I never played that kind of thing as I don’t like being dirty. So today I learned that it is okay to be dirty as we can clean them. The important thing was to learn on the job instead of just the theory such as reading the book. 

Two other lessons of the day are on being last minute and regretting. I used to make people worry due to my last minute habit. But this time, because of my daughter’s eating and sleeping duration and time are unpredictable, we were rushing and now I can feel how uncomfortable it is to be ready and waiting for other. The other lesson was on regretting. On my way back, I worried on a lot of things such as my daughter going to sleep, then the worry of getting taxi, and the worry of calling home. Hopefully I can learn to be less last minute and focus on what I can do instead of worrying and regretting things that are either in the past or in the future. 

What are holding me back from making decisions?

There are at least three things that often hold me from making decisions: the fear of feeling regretful, forgetting the consequences of making decisions, and adding too many constraints.

First, the fear of feeling regretful. I have many things that I regret for. I often focused on the past such as why I did that and how could I do that or how could I not do the other alternative. The regrets are so strong that they fill up the mind and hinder from thinking what I can still do.

Second, I forget that there is also consequence of not making decision or delaying decisions. I often make do nothing as my default move instead of selecting from the available options. But that does not account for the impact of delaying decisions. I need to remember that delaying decisions can cause me very regretful in the future and bring me the consequences that I have not considered.

Third, I add too many constraints from the beginning. Instead of relaxing the constraints at the beginning, I added too many constraints. This cause no feasible solutions are available and at the end I could not have the best feasible solution and so no action is done.

So, how to take a step forward? First, consider that not making decision also has its own regrets. Because of that, I do not need to run from the feeling regretful as I will feel regretful regardless what decision or move I take. Second, delaying decision have other impacts that are not known. Isn’t it better to choose from the alternatives as we already know roughly on the consequences? Third, relax the constraints. Generate more than two alternatives. Let go some of the constraints. In any case, find ways that I can move instead of doing nothing.

A Whole Month without Writing

Today is the first of April which means that I did not write any single post for the month of March. In addition, there was only 1 post in February. That is an indicator on how my procrastination level increased and the inability to get things done in a good enough manner. Everyday seems to be not good enough with missed deadlines and opportunities. Making decision becomes tougher and the fear of making wrong decision grows stronger.

Mistakes by mistakes happen with little done to reflect upon to learn from them. It is as if I am not able to learn from mistakes and keep doing them. Many helps have been given to me but it seems that I myself am not helping. In this situation, I can only remind myself not to quit during stormy days. At the same time I need to make sure that I do not do things that indirectly force the situations that would make me quit.

In any case, I need to remember to face the problems, not run away from them. I need to lower down my expectations and progress slowly even when I cannot see the progress.