Thursday, January 26, 2006
Declarations of Independence
Max has been full of surprises lately. Last week after his bath, he walked into his room and declared, "This place is a mess!" Then he proceeded to pick up every dinosaur, train car, cowboy hat, construction vehicle and ball and return it to its proper home. (Perhaps this wouldn't seem so remarkable were it not from the child who, for much of his life, has tried to shirk duty on the clean-up crew with this exaggerated sigh: "I'm starting to feel a little tired now...." Only a couple of weeks ago Max dismissed my request to pick up the birthday candles that he'd strewn across the kitchen floor, saying, "That would be a good job for Boo!")
There's a wonderful woman at Max's school who regularly buoys me with her wit and wisdom. Perhaps I cling with such hope to her advice because she once offered me these comforting words: "As a parent, you only have to get it right 40% of the time for your children to believe they had a happy childhood." I'm thinking of her now because she also cautioned me that when it comes to raising kids, there's no such thing as "turning a corner." Because there are hundreds of corners. So I've been careful not to expect dramatic changes in behavior overnight. And then it happened again.
Last night after dinner, I turned around to find Max perched atop the kitchen table, carefully spooning the remainder of the fruit salad into a plastic box. As far as k.p. duty goes, I've never asked Max to do more than carry his plate to the sink. But in a spontaneous burst of helpfulness, he'd noticed what needed to be done and figured out how to do it.
And then this evening Max announced that he wanted to fix dinner and he didn't want any help. His autonomy lasted right up until the moment he needed an ingredient that was beyond his reach. Even then, though, he insisted that I not look at the table until he was ready. Finally, he summoned Boo and me to dinner. Waiting at each of our rightful places, on the table Max had set all by himself, was a bowl of Special K cereal and a turkey and cheese sandwich flavored with a thick smear of mayonnaise. After dinner, Max and Boo crawled onto the island and wrung the juice from a Cara-Cara orange for dessert. Then Boo and I polished off a ruby-red grapefruit plucked earlier this week from the backyard tree. For Max, it might have been the perfect meal. For different reasons, I think I'll remember it for a long, long time as well.
There's a wonderful woman at Max's school who regularly buoys me with her wit and wisdom. Perhaps I cling with such hope to her advice because she once offered me these comforting words: "As a parent, you only have to get it right 40% of the time for your children to believe they had a happy childhood." I'm thinking of her now because she also cautioned me that when it comes to raising kids, there's no such thing as "turning a corner." Because there are hundreds of corners. So I've been careful not to expect dramatic changes in behavior overnight. And then it happened again.
Last night after dinner, I turned around to find Max perched atop the kitchen table, carefully spooning the remainder of the fruit salad into a plastic box. As far as k.p. duty goes, I've never asked Max to do more than carry his plate to the sink. But in a spontaneous burst of helpfulness, he'd noticed what needed to be done and figured out how to do it.
And then this evening Max announced that he wanted to fix dinner and he didn't want any help. His autonomy lasted right up until the moment he needed an ingredient that was beyond his reach. Even then, though, he insisted that I not look at the table until he was ready. Finally, he summoned Boo and me to dinner. Waiting at each of our rightful places, on the table Max had set all by himself, was a bowl of Special K cereal and a turkey and cheese sandwich flavored with a thick smear of mayonnaise. After dinner, Max and Boo crawled onto the island and wrung the juice from a Cara-Cara orange for dessert. Then Boo and I polished off a ruby-red grapefruit plucked earlier this week from the backyard tree. For Max, it might have been the perfect meal. For different reasons, I think I'll remember it for a long, long time as well.
1 Comments:
What a lovely dinner! I imagine Max was proud of himself - and rightfully so! - for doing it all by himself.
How wonderful to pluck a fruit from your own grapefruit tree. I wrote about Texas grapefruit yesterday, before I'd read this. Yum.
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