Our little one grows so much, so fast. In the last month, he went from not walking, still cruising around, to moving independently - far and fast. Now that his legs are stable, he likes to check out the world upside down in a highly adorable, leg supported head stand. His language is exploding as well, He's now learned signs for "Please, more, banana, bike, drink, and some attempt at outside" and says, "mama, dada, cup, car, green, jiggle-jiggle (the sound he makes for his dad's belly), tickle-tickle, pssss (potty), and please, " He's really starting to understand a lot. As a speech-therapist, I find myself mentally cataloging each new behavior, It's just so exciting to watch him seemingly without effort, progress through each step. One day, you are just dilligently teaching (or not even teaching something), the next, seemingly out-of-the-blue, he's got it! It's really just a lot of fun.
I remember a few years ago, someone referring to their child as "fun" and thinking, "uh, ya right, I'm no dummy. Kids are just a lot of work. Good work, but work." Now I realize that I was dead on, but wrong as well. Ian is just a joy! He just amazes me every day. I follow patterns. I expect to see what is next on the pattern. But, with Ian, he's been doing A & B so I expect a C, when suddenly an E or F jumps out of no where, leaving the C &D for a later surprise when I have all but given up on them. I just really enjoy him.
With these new happenings, comes also the less delightful developments as well. Ian has learned quite a few signs and words. He has learned that words/ signs have power. But he doesn't have a word or sign for Everything yet. And he does want just that--Everything-- to see and do and touch and feel and/ or eat Everything. There's the whole world to explore and he's gotta see it. It's gotta be frustrating for him sometimes, to have the whole world in front of you, have no way to access most of it, and have words for 10 items. He's also been practicing his high-pitch soprano voice, which converts itself occasionally, but conveniently into a clearly audible frustration signal as well. I thought I was gonna go insane for a couple of days there, but fortunately, it seems to be decreasing within the last few days. (I think as a result of teaching substitute vocabulary.) I go into auditory sensory overload pretty easily, so I was about to loose it for a couple of days there. Of course, this was the same day that Ian learned that he could splatter food over a 4 food radius if he blew raspberries at just the right time, AND that it was fun to dump out cups. My ears and my clothes were oversaturated. (Fortunately, I have developed strategies to minimize all of these, but Wow were they frustrating.)
Then, yesterday as I was watching him do his little thing, It occurred to me. I think it's really easy for parents to say to themselves, "When my kid starts/ stops ...... (fill in the blank), then I will really enjoy him/ her." Well, that's just silly. Don't you know, that with the next phase of development comes a whole new set of desirable AND less desirable characteristics. We've got to teach him so he grows out of them successfully and thrives in each new phase. But if we always wait for our children/ spouses/ life to be absolutely perfect, and of course absolutely convenient, to enjoy him/ them- Then we could waste our whole lives never realizing that what we have is nothing less than amazingly wonderful.
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