denouement

We have been busy over here. Bu-sy. Suddenly, both girls are kneeling in front of coffee tables - snipping with safety scissors, drawing, lettering, homework-ing, reading, humming on educational websites.

Something has shifted.

Miss M has always been brilliant, of course, but now it's a different sort of brilliant.

The kind you can see.

She still uses her huge words and her very proper, formal syntax peppered with the elementary school vernacular (as in "that is heck-a cool") but she...how shall I put this?

She's willing to put it out there. She is willing to be seen.

She used to sit at the table at homework time, telling us stories, tracing her fingers with her pencil, up and down every five minutes - anything but doing her work.

Tonight, she brisked through her homework, tossed it aside...and asked for more work to do.

So we cruise websites and do extra math and read aloud. She is enraptured with American Girl books that chronicle time periods. She reads the stories aloud and with feeling, stopping every paragraph or so to ask me if I am listening or What do you think about that? or Can you look at me to let me know that you are listening? After about a half an hour, she closes the book and says, "That's enough of that. Don't want to get too wrapped up," completely aware of her inclination to shut out the world and disappear into the world of her books.

She picked up my Michelle Garcia Winner workbooks for kids with social deficits. We tried those books and exercises about a year ago, with little interest. Recently, she started reading the parent/educator portion then started discussions with me and had me do the worksheets. She is also working on her 5 point scale book, setting up an intricate web of rewards for behaviors changed. All unprovoked.

Something is transitioning in her.

Not to be outdone, Roxie is raging as well. She is lettering and alphabet-ing and hooked on phonics like a miniature crack addict. She is jonesing for more information. Spare a dimebag of phonics, lady? I can imagine her saying, twitching for more alpha-high. Our front door is covered with post-its reading ROXIE and MOM and GRIMPY and DAD and CAT.

I cannot keep enough workbooks in the house. We are down to worksheets downloaded from Enchanted Learning and NOGGIN, such is the thirst for knowledge, for busy-ness, for something to do with these brains.

As I've said before, Miss M is not motivated by the material rewards so much as the feeling she is getting of excelling, of being recognized for her hard work. The verbal recognition and proud feeling is what she craves. Her therapist and I talked about it today; Miss M is indeed driven on all fronts.

I hear you, my friends, whose children are similarly bursting with feelings and accomplishments and sizzling brain synapses. Some of you wonder about development - when and how and why or why not. I hear you. Boy, do I hear you. I wonder.

I wonder why, after years of lolling around, too tired much of the time to do much other than read and think, Miss M is compelled to get it up and out there for the world to see. Why, at this particular time, Roxie's brain explodes with pre-reading and mathematical skills. It was one month ago that she was content with her dolls and toys.

It is an emotional readiness, to be sure. Is it a pronounced feeling of well-being? Safety? Feeling totally supported? Is it competition? Completion?

I turn 42 on Thursday. As many of you know, I am undergoing a developmental surge. I have been emotionally delayed, shut down for so long. A shift now? At last? Finally? What took so long? Why so quick? Why this year? This moment in time?

Everything that I have done has prepared me for this moment - the nervous breakdown at D-Day (Diagnosis Day), the childhood abuse, the fantastic career, then the plummet into depression - all marinated and stewed and cooked itself into the being I am before you, naked, vulnerable, strong and joyous.

For my girls, all those years of showing up, of reading books and role playing and therapies and facilitating playdates - I'm whispering here - could it be those things that have set my children up for success? Could the cliche be true?

Because, truly, with Miss M? I didn't have much faith in that stuff. I said I did, but really, I thought that we would be stuck in that loop for an eternity.

So. Development. I'm reminded of those 12-step adages I heard so many years ago. In a church basement, those wonderful people in recovery standing, holding hands, helping each other get better. They spoke a lingo that made my twenty-something self laugh them off as cheesy and stupid. It now makes perfect sense to me.

Keep showing up.

Do the work.

Keep it simple.

Let go, let God.

One day at a time.


I add a few more for good measure - the Four Agreements:

Do your best.

Take nothing personally.

Be impeccable with your word.

Do not make assumptions.

On we go, my girls and I, searching and striving for our personal best, whatever that may be today. Me, I'm keeping it simple. They, as children, have no choice but to keep it simple. We're looking for those experiences that eventually make those connections that help us grow. Let's all make those experiences and connections together, shall we? Because from what I'm feeling from all of you, we're all looking for the same things.

Happy Birth-day. To all of us.