My kids are starting to comprehend the idea of dress up. It’s really quite amusing to watch. It started a while back with them walking around the house in our shoes. Closed shoes provided an amusing visual (picture flippers and you get the basic idea), but their attempts to amble in my flip flops just crack me up. Seeing their tiny little feet in comparison to my huge shoes is such an image. It reminds me of how little they really are.
A while back I got my daughter a little pink sunhat from Target. It was meant to be an Easter hat, I suppose, but it was cute and cheap. Why not, right? She didn’t want to wear it. Oh well. It went on the shelf. Very recently, it has become interesting so I got out some of the other hats that I have bought them recently, in the hopes of them wearing it. (You can correctly assume that asking my children to wear any head covering results in catlike wailing. Always has… fun stuff!)
When progress was slow, I took out my own floppy sun hat and showed them just how cool I looked. It worked perfectly. They both wanted to wear MY hat. Ahhh…. Not the intended result. What’s worse, they now want me to wear their hats, which are way too small (obviously) and make me look quite silly. I wouldn’t care but they fall off continuously and that’s annoying. Then again, who said I was gonna get anything done anyway?
Many people assume that cultures in other parts of the world, with different religions, languages and clothing, must have different experiences with their kids. I assume the opposite. I believe that ALL kids in ALL cultures probably steal their parents’ hats and shoes. Why? Because they want to be just like the grownups, of course.
I was watching my children recently, while they were simply “being”. They were playing quietly, enjoying the light feeling in the air, and I was doing dishes. I started to watch them a bit more carefully and I realized that my kids sit just like I do. They cross their legs the exact same way. They even tilt their heads to the side when they are thinking about something… I didn’t even know I did that. My son has this hilarious way of looking up at the ceiling and extending his neck when he laughs, mouth wide open. I caught myself doing that too. I never realized it before. My daughter has copied the exact tone of “darn it” that I use when frustrated. I watched her try to fix her trains one day, fail, and proclaim “darn it” with a frustrated sigh and little pout of the lips. Oh crap, that must be what I do.
So, I got to thinking, hard. I realized, once again, the enormity of what I have done, bringing new human beings into this world. Not only have I created the responsibility to feed, clothe and handle the medical issues for these new little people, but I have assumed responsibility for modeling what they will see as the “real world”. I have accepted the job of teaching them, without even consciously trying, how to be and what to do. I don’t know about you, but I find that sort of scary.
And exciting…
I took the kids to a pet shop a month or so ago, just to kill time. I was rounding my son up when I saw my daughter running for the cat adoption cages. Uh oh, this could end badly… she was going to reach the cage before I could reach her. Warning! Potential danger! They have claws!!!
When she reached the cage, she stopped and crouched by the cage. She smiled gently, tilted her head to one side and slowly inserted her little finger into the cage where the kitten’s neck was pressed against the bars. She cooed (yes cooed) “Beautiful kitty cat” and started to stroke his neck delicately. When he purred, she giggled and continued. When she saw me, she glanced up with a huge smile and went right back to playing with the kitten. She was in love.
I was awed, amazed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away and I certainly couldn’t find my voice. How did she know to do this? Where did she learn to be so gentle? She had learned it the same place my son had learned to curl up in my lap and gently tickle my arm with his tiny little pudgy fingers, so delicately and tenderly that it felt like I was being caressed by a feather, sending chills down my spine.
They learned it from us. From every time we held them and rubbed their backs. Every time we kissed their heads and cheeks in comfort. Every time we tickled their round little tummies, while they rolled on the floor belly laughing. We didn’t have to tell them what gentle means, they live it. Every day. Even when they don’t choose to display that particular understanding (oh, like, when they choose to smack each other in the head with plastic toys before nap time… ) they know what gentle is. They’ll outgrow the immature emotions and impulsivity that disengage their gentle button at inconvenient times, but they will never outgrow this inherent understanding of the safe and loving world they inhabit.
Maybe, just maybe, we are doing a few things right as we bumble through this thing called parenting. J
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