life with greyson + parker: Full Time Job

Greyson,

You are the only 2 year old I know with a full time job. You are awesome at it. Your title? Professional Learner. You go to speech on Monday and Thursday afternoons and preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Soon you will also have about 20 hours a week of ABA therapy--COMING SOON!

You and I have our own "school" at home every day too. We sit at the kitchen table for at least an hour in the morning working on words, fine motor skills and cognitive stuff. We work really hard. We color, do flashcards, thread beads, sort, stack- all kinds of good stuff.

I'm so proud of you.

And I'm so proud and honored to be your teacher and your Momma. I've learned through you though-that I am never only the teacher, I am also a student. Every day I am student because you teach me too. I pray for patience though because I'm not so good at that dubious P word and I've realized that you're never too old to be a Professional Learner.

Some days we will sit by the back door for 10 minutes at a time. You want to go play out in the back yard. I beg you to say, "O" as in "Open". Instead you tell me "More" (which is your catch word for everything.) I beg, I plead, I jump up and down, I sing- I do everything I can to get an "O" from your rosebud lips so I can open the door for you. I smile acknowledging the little sand of hope burrowed deep inside -that one day this language thing will come naturally. In fact, I roll my eyes at the silly notion that one day I might even miss being needed so much. And so that pearl just continues to develop until then.

I'm reminded of the lyrics of a Loudon Wainright song I love, "That's my Daughter in the Water...everything she knows I taught her....everything she knows." As a parent of any child, we are the first and most important teachers in their life. Wow. What an honor to sculpt this little bean and what a privledge it is to create magic in his life.

Being a Momma or a Dad means unconditional love. I always knew that phrase anecdotally. I thought I knew it in my heart too. Here comes more learning on my part--for now I know for sure, grasshopper, that I am learning a little more each day. I feel it. Unconditional love means not even thinking for one second-"Why don't they just..." or "I just wish that they would..."

If you spend any energy focusing on what is missing, you may miss out on the beauty that is real and astonishing and already there.