About two days ago, our son learned how to clap. He not only learned how, but he knows what it's called, and he does it when we ask him to. It started out slowly with him simply bringing his chubby little hands together and then staring at them in mystified delight as if to say, "How did those get there?" And then I took a video of it, and suddenly it clicked! After putting his hands together, he pulled them apart and put them together again rapidly. Hooray!!!! He did it more.
Now he claps at almost every occasion, and it seems like he is cheering for all the things that we adults take for granted - another bite of food - clap, clap, clap - another toy found under the couch - clap, clap, clap. He woke up this morning clapping. Everyone should wake up that way!
He thinks it's funny when I clap along. He giggles at me and grabs my hands and tries to bite my fingertips. He laughs even more when I yell "Ouch!" in mock outrage. It's like he knows I'm joking.
After this clapping incident, my husband then decided that we needed to start taking advantage of this fertile learning time and teaching him new things every day. "Yeah," I responded sarcastically, "tomorrow we start calculus." I was sarcastic because I felt guilty as if I wasn't fulfilling my mom-ly duties, but then a reminder came in the form of a letter from our church, like a sign from God, herself.
Our church has a grade school connected to it, and they are always hoping to increase enrollment, so they begin making contact with new parents early. And even though they think his name is David, I still thought the letter was apropos. This is the second letter they have sent us since Carson was baptized. In the letter we were reminded that even though children are learning new things every day, we shouldn't push them too hard. It wasn't stated in those exact words, but that was the gist.
It made me think and question. Isn't that what happens to many children who enter school eager to learn only to have that enthusiasm squelched by the drudgery of the day to day work? I know this sounds weird coming from a teacher, but I have always thought that school should be more fun than it is. I try to live by this in my own classes. We should be lifetime learners. There is no best time to learn according to age. The best time to learn is determined by what we want to know which is based on what we are involved with at the time. And some people never learn that they should never stop learning.
So the moral of this confusion is that Carson has his whole life ahead of him to learn, and we shouldn't take that away from him by forcing learning on him too soon. We should rejoice in every new thing, no matter how big or small, no matter how frequent or rare - clap, clap, clap! Carson and God have just taught me one of the best life lessons of all. Relax and enjoy this and don't stress over what you think you need to be doing, Mom!
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