Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Resting My Brain




I've been thinking about a lot of deep truths lately, and frankly, my brain is tired. So, today I'm going to write about something much more light-hearted!

Since Jenelle, Rachel, and Ellie are planning on moving out in the next couple of months, I've been trying to enjoy Ellie as much as possible before it happens. She doesn't really say anything yet, although she tries to imitate sounds now and then. I think the closest she comes is when she says "Jack-Jack" (our chocolate lab) , "Night-Night", or "Mama". But she doesn't actually say the words, she makes sounds that you KNOW are those words only because you've just been talking about them.

This may cause you to think it's difficult to communicate with Ellie. Let me clear that up right now . . . the girl knows how to make her wants known! Ellie is possibly the best 1-year-old charades player in all the world. If she wants you to sit, she'll just pull you down (by your shirt, your pants, or whatever she can grab). If she wants to go upstairs, she'll reach for you to pick her up, then point her way out the living room, up the stairs, and into whichever room she's wanting to play in. She's really quite bossy. She'll pat the spot where she wants you to sit, and bring the book she wants you to read. Then she'll back in like one of those big construction trucks (the only thing missing is the "beep, beep, beep") and plop down on your lap to hear the story. You may think at that point you have control over the book, but no, that would not be the case. She turns to whichever pages she wants and you talk about those pages. She has one book with Cookie Monster that has chocolate chip cookies on the page and it doesn't matter how many times you try to go past that page, she wants to go back and look at the cookies. She even tries to eat them!

One year old. Granted, she's almost one and a half. But how do they learn to be so me-centered so quickly? I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that we all dote over her, but I think we're just plain born with a lot of it. Then as we get older, we get to begin the life-long process of learning to be others-centered instead. I may be missing something here, but wouldn't it be much easier if we were just born others-centered???!!

Then I see some truly amazing things. Ellie's cousin falls, and as he is crying she runs to get his blanket and his pacifier to comfort him. Or she sees Little Willie in the nursery and she gets a toy for him so he has something to play with. Is she being others centered???

Could it be the battle between spirit and flesh starts on day 1?

2 comments:

Tracy said...

I need to pass along the comment that Leonard gave me. He said, "Bless your heart, you have no clue what it means to rest your brain!"
Maybe he'll have to give me some pointers. :o)

Rising Rainbow said...

She is very sweet! And I have to laugh at the "resting my brain" channeling maybe a different direction but not resting. lol