Where would we be without our mothers?

I hadn’t heard my daughter cry this hard in months. She wasn’t hurt, nor sad.

She was frustrated.

The day before she had “won” a loom bands kit at the Carnival (I’m not sure you can call it winning when you get something at a Pull-A-Prize). The kit consists of a plastic board with a grid of rods, a utensil and small coloured elastic bands to make the loom bands with.

In the weekend, she of course wanted to make loom bands. She looked at the instructions but somehow wasn’t able to successfully make an intact bracelet from the rubber bands. No matter how hard she tried, the bands kept falling apart, causing her to cry her heart out to her mother.

‘Why is it not working! I’m following all the steps!’ she sobbed.

Her expectations of a DIY-kit are probably shaped by Lego. She never has problems following the Lego-instructions. Or perhaps she is still a bit too young to make loombands on her own. Whatever it is, she couldn’t do it and was devastated.

Luckily her mother was there to sooth and help her.

My girlfriend gave her exactly what she needed: the patience to listen to her grievances, to calm her down and tell her everything would be fine. I remember my own tears of frustration when I was a kid, and how my mother was there for me to sooth me and tell me things would work out fine. And they did.

And so did the loom bands. After my daughter had calmed down, and with a little guidance from her mother, she figured out how it worked and managed to make her first loom band, all on her own. After that first one, she got the hang of it and many more loom bands followed, handing them out to family at a birthday party that night.

All because her mom was there for her.

Thank you, moms ❤️.