Acceptance

One of the things I try to remember as a parent is to take my children for who they are and not who I want them to be. I repeated this often to myself as a mantra when Aidan would cling to my legs for hours at birthday parties while all the other boys would run off to play, leaving their moms happily forgotten. He is my slow adjuster. He warms up and will be off to play eventually, but it will take him more time than the other boys. And that is okay. This is who he is.

I haven't had to use my mantra for a while, well, until today. Today, I got Aidan set up at the kitchen table happily working on math problems and spelling words. In order to keep the other two munchkins busy I set Griffin up with coloring and Brennan up with tracing letters.

Brennan is fantastic at tracing letters, but he would prefer to stay in the dark about the actual names of the letters. Who needs pesky names anyway? Brennan doesn't. He could care less. Letters, schmetters. And deep down, this drives me insane. How can he not care? How? I realized that I am better at parenting the child who can't wait to show you what he has learned, who is eager to learn more and who wants to be the best at his letters, his words and his math. But this isn't Brennan. Brennan marches to the beat of his own drummer. And I must remember who he is, and not who I want him to be.

I haven't quite figured out how to get Brennan excited about learning. But for now, I am resolved to keep at it, with my sense of humor intact, and my mantra handy. Because the truth is, I love him for who he is, my sweet four year old little boy and I wouldn't want to change a thing. Letters and all.