Transitional Frustration

Well. I dropped the butter knife whilst buttering half of a bagel for the Boy's breakfast. The edge of it caught my toe--I didn't try to dodge because dude, it's a BUTTER knife. And well, it sliced it open. Lovely! There was blood! And I love the smell of blood and butter in the morning. On with the never ending circus of my life.

I wrote this post on Saturday...and well...the Boy started scooting around much more efficiently by Monday morning. The sentiment is still the same, so I'll go ahead and publish it and then add an addendum to the end.



See, the Boy is not quite the squishy, drooly baby that he has been. Nor is he yet the Toddler Terrorist he wants to be...yet. Anyway, he keeps looking around all curious and adorable and then realizing that he can't get where he wants to be (to cause TROUBLE) and then he gets MAD.

And then he makes this face...


Pitiful isn't it? You should hear the accompanying racket. You wouldn't feel quite so much sympathy for him, but rather, for ME.

Here's the thing. I don't know how to help him. And I'm not even sure that I should. Some things I think you have to learn on your own. And how to deal with frustration seems to me to be one of those things. As does momentum.

But I also feel this overwhelming empathy for him. I've been there. Often. That point where you can see what you want, you just don't know how to get there. It's like looking out over a valley and seeing what you want in the middle of it, but you can't see a way down off the mountain.

So the reality is that, more often than not, I tend to come to the rescue. I pick him up and move him around with me. I bring him the toys that have caught his eyes, I shift him into a sitting position after he falls over, I walk (holding his hands) around the apartment endlessly.

I worry that I'm creating a bad habit for the two of us. That I'm enabling him to be lazy and that he's taking advantage of my empathy. I worry sometimes that empathy inhibits his progress. But when I do nothing I worry that I'm teaching him to be skeptical and untrusting. I guess what I'm looking for is a middle ground and wondering if such a thing exists.

I want him to be independent. I want him to be bold and fearless. But I also want him to look at the world with better eyes than his mother. I want him to see the good in people first. I want him to trust and love without skepticism or cynicism. I want him to be better than I am.



Addendum: Oh dear. I am not ready to be the mother of a movable Child. When did this HAPPEN? I can't keep up with him! I put him down in one place and then I look for him and he is NOT WHERE I LEFT HIM! He has a fixation with cords and there are cords EVERYWHERE! He also seems to have a shoe fetish. We're doomed. DOOMED I say! We're still alive but we're DOOMED.