3 yr olds and relaxation exercises

I taught Joshua to deep breathe a while ago, gosh, I think he was two-ish??? Or younger, maybe. And we practice, both the deep breathing to calm down, or just to relax in order to sleep...and we practice how to relax each body part and let it fall asleep.

Long story short, he watched a children's video last night that was a little over the top, (a gutty disgusting skinless turkey chasing people around trying to eat them) and I didn't realize it and take it out until he was already scared. (totally my bad, i didn't think to preview the stupid thing).

So last night he couldn't relax because of that, and after the 3rd story/song request, I figured out why he was so antsy and started his deep breathing stuff but told him additionally to let ... any pictures or thoughts of that turkey that might be in his head .... like, float away on a cloud, out of his head ... because sometimes that's the visualization that works best for me personally.

I guess you would have to love kids and meditation too to appreciate how cute this is, but a few minutes later, his little eyes popped open, he looked at me, and he said "Mommy! All the stories are out of my head too!"

I just told him that was great, and it meant he was doing a great job with his deep breathing, and that now, he would have much more room in his head for the new stories we would tell tomorrow night. But I was just impressed, as someone who can't focus for more than 3 seconds sometimes ...... that he could actually do it, or comprehend it.....

crap, and then I forgot to put his grounding suggestion in, so that if and hopefully when he fell asleep, he wouldn't just hover in a meditative state, but he seemed to sleep soundly anyways....

have the WHOLE weekend off, catching up on homework, going winter clothes shopping for Joshua and Lance now that the weather is actually cold finally..... looking forward to not running, running, running.... only writing, writing, writing .... 3 chapters I have to catch up on that I"ve gotten behind in...