I am fascinated by my children. I love watching them grow and learn.
I never understood how interesting we human beings are since having to raise my own two kids.
At 5 and 2, my kids are at great ages to observe. Of course, every age to this point has been “a great age.” That’s what everyone seems to say when I tell them how old my kids are, no matter how old they have been.
Does it ever stop being a great age? Maybe when they are teenagers.
This morning I watched them use empty pretzel containers, pieces of their race tracks, blankets, cardboard tubes and 
other random things they found in their play room to make a “contraption” to shoot marbles around the room. I just sat, watched and offered an occasional suggestion.
It’s fun to see how they develop basic skills we, as adults, take for granted and how the two of them do it so differently.
G, the 5 year old, has always been a thinker. He’s mature and expresses himself through music. He wakes up singing and has since he was old enough to verbalize.
Biz, the 2 year old, is the doer. He dives right into things, sometimes literally, and expresses himself through vivid storytelling.
One of these days, I’m going to sit down with the two of them and compose a musical. I think we could come up with a pretty good production.
Watching G learn how to read has been the most interesting and amazing experience yet. It’s like I’m watching his brain develop right before my eyes.
Last week was “Read Across America” week and Dr. Seuss’s birthday. The “guest readers” in G’s kindergarten class were the students. I received a notice the Friday before February vacation that encouraged parents to help their kids practice so that they’d be ready to read when they got back from vacation.
The funny thing is that by time I got the notice, G had already brought in two books and had read them to his classmates. He was so excited when his teacher told him about being a guest reader, he became the guest reader a week and a half early. While I thought was a bit odd that his teacher told him he had to read to everyone without getting some sort of notice first, I figured that G knew what he was doing. (He always does.) And why would I discourage him from reading?
I got the notice three days later.
Biz isn’t old enough to read yet, but he’s been telling stories like a pro. They typically involved “T-Rext” the dinosaur, who often attempts to eat our dinner until Biz tells him to go away. Sometimes, he invites me to fly with him so that we can get kangaroos, horsies and elephants. He turned an old phone into a fishing pole and talked about how much he loved the fishies and how we would catch them and hug them. I suspect he’ll have a number of imaginary friends develop in the near future.
The best part is seeing how they learn and react to things. I can see bits of me and my husband in everything they do. It’s quite eye-opening.
Forget about stopping to smell the roses.
When’s the last time you stopped and really observed a child?
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