The other day I was at Stephanie's house and we were talking about our beautiful children (her daughter is two weeks younger than Jacob, my oldest, who is 17 months today). The topic we were discussing was how they are so smart and can do so many things that it surprises/confuses/frustrates us whenever they can't or won't do other things that we think are just as simple. For example, Jacob can recognize color groups (he brings all the red blocks, then all the blue blocks, etc) but he doesn't get shapes yet.
Well, today I learned (yet again) the hard way (yet again) that he is just a baby still and he doesn't understand everything I think he should.
For Christmas from my Secret Santa I received gardening supplies, a red pot, and a red Amaryllis bulb (ohh yeah, my Santa knows me well!). Jacob was very interested in the trowels and the rake and he kept picking the box that had the bulb up and carrying it around. I thought, "Oh yes! He is going to have so much fun planting this with me!" So, we are home alone tonight and I have been dying to dig in the dirt (winter kills me with the being too cold to play outside and plant stuff), so I decided that we would go ahead and plant it today. And I was so happy because gardening is something that I really love and I was excited that my little man would be able to take part in something that I enjoy.
So, I got all the stuff together and got my phone camera ready. I wanted to be sure to document our fun to possibly blog about it later (which I am, but in a different way than I expected). Then I sat down and we got started. But instead of it being as much fun as I imagined, it ended up being much more stressful than I wanted. He didn't listen as well as he usually does and he was just way TOO excited about getting to use the tools and dig in the dirt. Before we put the bulb in, he thought it was okay to just treat it however he wanted to. Then after we got it covered up, he thought that he could dig it back up. I was so upset!
Gavin called after we got it all put away and I was telling him about our experience, almost in tears. I just wanted to be able to share something I am passionate about with my little boy. He reminded me that Jacob is still a baby and one day he will be able to dig in the dirt with me if that is what he wants to do. He said that although Jacob is smart and energetic, there are still some things he can't understand. Even though he listens pretty well, he doesn't understand that planting the plant wasn't a game that he could keep playing when we were done. And I guess he really liked it because he wasn't ready to give it up!
What hard lessons have you learned lately? If you have kids, what experiences have you had when you thought your child was ready for something but s/he wasn't quite there yet?
