Growing up

This morning, there was sunlight and warmth and seeds to plant, so the girls and I went outside to play in the springtime-ness of the day.

A large stick was found, and dragged about with the same kind of glee one expects of puppies - or really, 5-and-a-half year olds in spring.

Then ooch, the disaster. Miss M had put the stick down. Miss R had made to walk over it, one foot across... Miss M then decided to grab the stick and run with it, which meant she picked it up while Miss R was still in mid-step-over.

One ouchy scrape later, Miss M is racing down the sidewalk (not even having noticed that she injured her sister), and Miss R is standing there clutching her leg and peering at the white scraped up bits of skin and crying...

I paged Miss M to come back and handle the problem.

And she did.

She came back, apologized, looked appropriately stricken, ran inside to get an ice pack while MIss R limped to the steps to sit in the sun... When Miss R declined the ice pack in a snit (too small for the boo-boo), Miss M didn't take it personally, and just ran back inside to get another ice pack (bigger one).

She asked if she could do anything to help. When that was NO, she stepped back out of the way and let Miss R have her time tending herself. But she didn't vanish, and kept her attention around her sister, peripherally aware and waiting.

And then as Miss R came up for air from her extended stay in 'woe is me' (she takes longer with her feelings than Miss M), Miss M was right there, offering to play ball with the Wounded One, cheerfully rolling a ball to her (ball is huge), laughing and encouraging her to kick it harder.

A small break in play had them standing together for a moment, and I heard Miss M say she was really sorry, and she'll try not to scratch her sister with a stick ever again. A peripheral glance over showed Miss R giving a nod and then a big hug back to her sister, and then they were back to the ball rolling game.

And all I had to do was get Miss M's attention in the first place. No other coaching! Uh. Whoa? Growing up!

Meanwhile, this morning, Mr G asked if he could use 15 minutes of his 30 minutes of computer game time. We only just announced that we wanted to limit the game time to 30 minutes a day... like, maybe two days back? We did explain why. And he listened and frowned with considered thought as I went through the issues and concerns with extended game play time. But he just rolled into it like it was no biggie, just 'okay, new limits, no problem'...

More growing up. So so so so so so so cool.

These little people are amazing. The more they grow, the more I really GET my mom's statement that it isn't the kid rearing that is the coolest part, it is the adult they grow into being. Yeah. These are going to be some very cool adults.

Comments

[Kylie]

I’m much closer to the start of the journey than you and your brood. But when I glimpse moments of Little Guy comprehending, showing compassion or accepting boundaries it is so cool. It’s such a big job to guide him on his way to adulthood; I hope I can help him become an adult I admire.

[Irene]

I can see the appeal, although with a two year old the adult stage is a long way off. But even at two, she's full of personality and joy and has already taught me some things about living life like you mean it.

Right now, it's common for me to feel like drinking because of her... but someday when she's of age, hopefully I'll go out drinking with her instead!

[hedra]

Yeah, at 2, and 3, and even 4, it seems forever away to adulthood... but at 5, it starts to seem like it is possible. And then 8, and 11, and... well, it comes.

At 2, it felt like it would be like this forever. I leaned a LOT on my mom's words at that age (about it not being about having kids, but having adult children). For each of them. (Having older ones didn't make 2 much easier.)