Determined Children

September 23, 2004

I learned a valuable lesson recently: Never underestimate the determination of children.

It all happened on a rather ordinary day a few weeks ago. I decided to hop in the shower while my kids (ages 4 and 1 1/2) were playing nicely in the next room. When I stepped out of the shower, my 18 month old approached me, fingers outstretched, repeating his newly-learned word “wet.” I thought he must have stuck his fingers in the sink or dribbled water from his sippy cup over them. Boy was I wrong.

Initially I didn’t respond to his “wet” fingers except to praise him for a word well spoken. But upon closer inspection, I suspected something was sorely amiss. In an instant, I put 2 and 2 together, perhaps only as mothers can, and raced into my daughter’s room to find the source of his wet fingers.

There, in the middle of the floor sat a puddle of sparkly brown nailpolish–probably about 5 inches in diameter. This all on the light beige carpet we had installed just one year ago.

I stood speechless (which rarely occurs), trying to decide how I would respond. I had a rather strange mix of emotions. Part of me wanted to scold him for permanently ruining the carpet. The other part of me was genuinely impressed by his determination.

You see, this little stunt of his was quite an operation. Not only did he figure out how to scale the bathroom cabinetry to reach the very top shelf where the fingernail polish is kept (his sister’s stool was instrumental in this), he also had to do it as quietly as possible so as not to tip off his mother who was showering less than two feet away behind a see-through shower curtain (specifically chosen for times such as these).

He then had to get himself and the make-up bag full of nail polish down off the stool and out of earshot of yours truly. He then had to unzip the bag (not always an easy feat for tiny fingers) and unscrew the cap off the nail polish bottle. Once said bottle was open, pouring the contents everywhere was the fun part I suppose.

As far as my response, I think I said something like, “Wow, you found the nail polish!” (OK, so I was in a state of shock.) Because the deed had been done and because I was certain he would be unable to comprehend any sort of scolding about permanent damage, I decided to make this one of those “family memories” to tell his future wife-to-be (in about 35 years)–probably about the same time I show her those cute pictures of him and his bare bottom in the tub.

So I began to think about it and I’ve concluded determination is something we’re born with. I have a hunch it’s all related to God giving us free-will. The question is, about which things will I be determined? How will I channel my time, resources and energy? Hopefully my days of sparkly brown nail polish are long gone.

Category: Parenting

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