Friday, October 20, 2017

Drawer by Drawer

Julia is doing this new thing with drawers: she opens them, she puts something inside of them and then she closes them.

It's amazing!

I move with her along the length of our kitchen counter - drawer by drawer - offering her some random piece of clutter from the counter top so she has something to put away for mommy.

And drawer by drawer we go... She opens the drawer, she picks up the item I've offered her, she places it inside the drawer, she pushes the drawer closed, then she slides her body over to the next drawer to do it all again.

We sometimes get through 3-4 drawers before she loses interest.

I wonder to myself as I watch her, what's changed in her brain recently, what new pathway has formed, making this a thing she now does? I have no idea, I'm not that smart.  But something changed, because this was not something she would do before, but now it is.

I think I could watch her do this with a thousand drawers and not lose interest.

A lot goes in to opening a drawer, putting something in and closing it. When you really think about it, it's a pretty complex task: seeing and planning and moving and pulling and picking and placing and pushing and repeating and on and on... A pretty complex task, that Julia now does -  now, at age 10 - not before, because her brain wasn't ready before - but now, because her brain is ready now and so now she does this thing.

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And I'm glad no one told me back when she was a tiny baby and I thought I needed to know things - that this is what she would be doing at age 10 and that I would be happy over it. Putting things in drawers?

I wouldn't have understood. My brain was not ready.

A lot goes in to separating from expectations and living in reality. When you really think about it, it's a pretty complex task: recognizing and feeling and honoring and grieving and seeing and loving and releasing and adjusting and embracing and on and on... A pretty complex task, that can't be done all at once because our brains aren't ready for everything all at once, they need time to change and form new pathways and get ready too.

So right now, it just happens to work out that Julia's brain is ready for putting things is drawers (!!!) and my brain is ready to celebrate whatever it is Julia's brain is ready for.  We maybe weren't ready before for now, but we didn't need to be.  And we maybe aren't yet ready now for what is next, but we don't need to be.

We are both perfectly ready for right now - just taking it drawer by drawer.