My son recently drew this Treasure Map. It has three treasure chests; the large one is for him and includes a robot. The divided treasure chest includes a gold coin for him and one for me; the smallest treasure chest includes a gold coin for Chris. The baby does not get his own treasure.
Apparently tickets are required to use the treasure map and go hunting so he also drew us tickets. The real treasure for me are these tickets--his first drawings of us! He is on the left, wearing his swim goggles. I am in the middle, with the "M." His Daddy is on the right, but that is not a "D" next to his head, that is his treasure.
The drawing my son has been doing this summer is just amazing. It's like overnight he went from scribbles to full-on drawings of people, things, scenes and stories. It's amazing to see. I never make any suggestions either, it all comes from him. Actually, this summer has been a real growth summer for him in a lot of ways. He started the summer afraid to put his head under the water and now swims almost all the way across the pool, dives for toys on the bottom of the pool (3 feet), sits on his bottom on the bottom of the pool, takes the really big slide into the pool by himself and just generally loves it. He makes tons of friends at the pool, shows and expresses no fear, and doesn't need me to get in with him (although we both have a ton of fun when I can--depends on a sleeping baby though).
He's a lot more independent in so many ways: walks to the neighbors house on his own (even when we don't want him to!), has regular family contributions around the house, can fold his own laundry and help with the baby's, and has developed a real sense of himself as a "big kid."
When I stop to think about it I have two strong feelings.
First, I realize that it is absolutely the right thing to let kids develop at their own pace! We try to introduce him to all sorts of things, but we've never pushed him to do any particular thing at any particular time (except dress himself!) and now that he's ready he is getting complete enjoyment out of his achievements. I feel that if we'd expressed some need for him to do things sooner he might have not enjoyed them as much or felt like he didn't measure up in some way. He's not riding his bike much yet, although he likes to get it out and try every now and then, and I just remember that he'll get there when he's ready, and frankly, if he inherited my bike-riding genes it'll be awhile (embarrassing but true: I didn't take my training wheels off until I was 11! I couldn't see why I should make it harder. Then the six year old next door took hers off. Ouch.).
Seond, it's wonderful to see him grow up. But, as his mom, it's also not sad, but something like sad, and it makes me realize (again) how fast the time goes.
Labels: kids
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