Day Sixty - Three

Wow! Two months since I started this crazy thing. Thanks to all of you have continued to stop by. I am learning that I don't have to do this all by myself and that's a good feeling. It's soooo much easier when I let people help me.

It can be a hard thing to ask for help. When you're a young child, you eagerly find opportunities to "do it myself". And later in elementary school, you learn that friends can judge when you're unsure. Conversations start carrying the phrase, "I know but I want to see if you know" whenever seemingly grown-up subjects come in to play. In other words, if you don't know something, don't let people know. Being a less than together child (read: mess), I was an especial target for such "tests".

So I have spent a lifetime becoming, well... something of a know-it-all. Now, not in an in-your-face, blow-hard, constant fountain of undesired information kind of way. But I'm unreasonably afraid of being caught ignorant. I am voracious in my hunger for knowledge of all sorts. I read EVERYTHING! I'm working on my fourth degree and I try to absorb any knowledge anyone shares with me like a sponge. And as I said, I don't just run around throwing information bombs at people. But when asked something, I tend to overspeak... a lot. I have a very comfy soap box and I pull it out a little too easy. Okay WAAAAAY too easy.

So as I become comfortable in my skin, I hope to become more comfortable in my mind. If I know that I know, I don't have to show. Does that make sense? Well, if it doesn't, I won't spend the next hour explaining why it does. My soap-box is safely stored in the closet. I'm trying to see if I can let it gather a little dust. Just a little...

Day Sixty or Slow Down Pt. 2

So a couple of days ago I told the story of learning the lesson of slowing down. Well evidently, Officer H. isn't the only one sent to teach me this lesson. So is my daughter.

My gorgeous, loving, stubborn, infuriating, piece of perfection pie daughter.

I have also mentioned in past posts that she is firmly in the "I do it myself" stage. She doesn't want help no matter how ridiculously out sized she is for the task.

Well, I've noticed a trend. The more I want her to hurry up and complete a task. The slower she goes. And if I try to insist on helping, well, she has to start all over. So as we were dancing this dance for the 5th time today, I got it. (Don't tell me I'm slow on the pick-up!) If I would relax and give her space, she would either complete the task or ask for help but in my impatience I was making everything take longer. Just like the ticket that I got because I was afraid I would be late that became the reason I was late.

I think that life is that way too. Maybe one can want something too much. We rush it or squeeze the life out of it. Who knows where any of us would be if we changed even the slightest things? I sure don't know. I know this, though. Maybe if I'd gotten what I wanted, I wouldn't have gotten what I needed. And maybe, just maybe, if I can learn to slow down, I might find everything I want all in its own time, like a two year old learning to do it all by herself.

Day Forty - Nine or All By Myself

My two year old has entered the most exciting and most annoying stage -- the "I do it by myself!" stage. She says this phrase so many times that my husband and I have started singing Eric Carmen's "All By Myself" all day long with a slight lyric adjustment...
All by myself
I want to do it
All by myself
Without you

I just want to scream -- "It's okay to let people help you! This would be SOOO much easier if you would let people help you"

I have come to believe that God gives us children so that we may better see ourselves. I am notorious for trying to do everything myself without help. Watching my daughter insist upon this shows me just how ridiculous it is. How ridiculous I am. So, lesson learned in toddler-dom. It's okay to let people help me. This would be SOOO much easier if I would let people help me.