Talents taken for granted

I started the morning by cooking breakfast with my youngest daughter Jaidyn. Before we could cook we needed to clean the counters off, part of that involved taking garbage to the outside garbage. On the way back in she said "I came in before you." A few seconds later as if to reiterate her point she said "I came in before you and you came in after me." I jokingly said "Yes, that's usually how it works." In my mind though I was reminded of the time last year that I took my son to speech therapy. While there she mentioned that he struggled with his prepositions, before and after being one set of them. He was 7 at the time and Jaidyn is 3, so I was proud of her that she could differentiate between the two as well as use them correctly.

Something that perhaps before I would have taken for granted. I have had a lot of things like that come up over time. My sweet husband is very hands on and mechanically inclined. He can encounter new machinery he has never seen before and just by looking at it tell you what it does and how. He always wants to know how things work. His talent for seeing how things function is something he has always taken for granted and usually calls common sense. What I see as a knack or a talent he sees as just plain common sense. It took some time with him being married into my family to realize that not everyone has this "common sense". I hope as time goes on he can better appreciate the gifts he has been given.

Another moment I was reminded of was when Carl James was in physical therapy as a baby and toddler. We had to do certain exercises to get him to sit up independently. Later we had to teach him how to get up from a sitting position into a standing position. If we were to stand him up on his own two feet he could stand for just a second on his own or longer while holding onto something but he could not go from sitting to standing on his own. We felt it was very important for him to have this kind of independence and to not need something to pull up on to do it. The physical therapist taught us a way to help him get to a standing position on his own and we worked with him on this technique for weeks if not months.

 

He eventually mastered this and took his first 5 steps at 18 months.

 Getting my twins to stand and to walk was a much easier task though. One of them started walking at 9 months and perfected it at 10 months. The other started walking at 10 months and perfected it in a week. She might be a little competitive. :) While I was there with my twins when they were learning to walk and stand there were many moments where they were learning independently which is true for my son as well, there were just more moments that I was there working with him and teaching him.

 

My twins are very agile and flexible. Something that comes natural for them. Kids at the park will envy the way they can climb and manipulate their bodies. Just the other day we were at the park and I had to tell them to climb out of a tree because they were too high.

 

 

Even though they were so high I was only slightly nervous because I know their capability. Still it seemed the wise choice to have them come down. We each have something we are good at. Something that comes natural for us. I have a brother that is very charismatic and does great in sells. Even though he is only 23 all of my family expects him to make a lot of money cause they know his set of talents. Things that come easy for my husband aren't necessarily easy for my brother and the reverse is true as well. It's easy to see others talents and dismiss our own. As I have struggled with things and seen others struggle I have come to have a better appreciation for the simple things. Even things as simple as being able to walk, balance and stand in one place. I am much more appreciative for my body after having had a child with physical limitations than I was before. I spent much of my youth jealous of the girls that were able to dance and do gymnastics or tumbling. It wasn't until I had my twins and started watching other kids at the park that I realized I was much more capable physically than I had ever given myself credit.

 

I might not be the most coordinated person when it comes to sports or dance but I do have a lot of strength and control over my body. I have been loving aerial silks and realizing that I am starting at a different spot than each woman in the room and it's okay to be where I am at.