It Doesn’t Take Much
One of the best things about having a 6-month-old is that they don’t care what you put in front of their faces; it could be a sippy cup and they’re delighted! Yay! A nondescript piece of plastic that I can play with, roll around, throw, squeeze, bite, bang and LOVE!
My 8-year old stepson, on the other hand, knows exactly what brand of cereal he wants and precisely which PSP games are acceptably cool - which in itself is a whole other realm of fun. I get to live inside the Toys ‘R’ Us catalog again like I did when I was little. I get to wander through the depths of Lego Star Wars, blasting clone troopers.
It’s what keeps us young, but more importantly (at least for me), it’s what keeps me humble. I now realize what my dad was talking about when he used to tell me I was smarter than him. How could that be? How could a little kid be smarter than a grown up!?
Now I get it. My kids are smarter than I will ever be because of the immense possibilities they face, because life is new and fresh and full of knowledge they actually want to obtain. Put it this way: when an 8-year-old can multiply numbers faster than you can, recite the names of every animal in National Geographic and point out that the t-shirt you’re wearing is the same one you wore last Thursday, you know you’re in trouble.
Kids grow up; they grow out of trends and adopt new ones; their needs become more specific and their tastes more refined. In short, my easygoing 6-month-old will one day be a high-maintenance little booger!
And I may not always be able to give him the clothes he wants or the newest and most popular games. But I can do what I do best, which is give him me. My time. My love. My silly if not stupid attempts to understand which comes first - Pidgeotto or Pidgeot.
Cuz let’s face it -isn’t that what they really want, above anything else?
October 3rd, 2006 13:58
so true…and finding the way to embrace their new desires while holding true to the ones they should be stemming from…like you said, our time, our love, and our simple presence…and in turn we get to marvel at their strength of will, because while it’s taxing, the foundation they’ve grown from allows them to express it, and that in itself is a really beautiful thing.