In May, we attended Kindergarten Open House with Kaity. It involved some things my baby – the youngest of 4 children with ages that span from 5 to 22 – does not appreciate: convention, expectations, being involved in something that her 6 year old sister knows more about, the perception that she has to dress a) fancy or b) like a princess. (And if you are wondering, she did wear her “fancy” shorts…)
This is how it started:
No surprises: she does not always do things like we want her to do or think she should.
However, I gave her space. I stopped trying to take posed pictures. I stopped trying to create a moment and instead, stepped inside her moment. She needed several of them, and then… she was ready to explore her surroundings:
And after a bit, she was ready to embrace them, in her way...
Sometimes I think KK is so very different from me that I don’t know how I will possibly deal with her, much less raise her, to be a productive member of society. And then I pause, and often find that she has taught me all over again. She is actually just like me, in that she has a specific, sometimes “unconventional” way of doing things. The difference is that while I obsess about making that part of me fit into a box, she couldn’t care less about the box.
I want to be more like that when I (finish) grow(ing) up.
