"I Don't Know How to Say It Yet."

My mom tells me that when I was younger and would get upset trying to communicate something to them, I would often heave a dramatic sigh and say, "I can't know the words." Ella says something similar to this now when she's mid melt-down (ten years from now, she's gonna love me for posting this picture). Lately, she'll shake her head and say, "I don't know how to say it yet, momma." Sadly, it occurred to me that this is one of those rare moments when I often stop and actually try to empathize with my daughter. The truth is that sometimes I forget she's only two. She started talking early- and often. (Very often). That, combined with her almost off-the-charts height makes her look older to me, so I am guilty of treating her, and therefore expecting her to act, like she's four. It probably doesn't sound like a big difference, but the developmental milestones between ages two and four are huge, and those are some pretty unrealistic expectations to place on a kid. How frustrating it must be to want to be able to say something and not know how to get it out.

As parents, we know that our children are constantly evolving and learning. We have seen from our own experience and the experience of others that what they can't do today, they will be eventually be able to do in the coming days, weeks, and months. So, under normal circumstances, we don't sweat it. But children don't see the big picture (clearly, given the plethora of tantrums). Ella isn't yet aware of her own steady trajectory yet. She only understands the moment she's in, and right at this moment, she has this thought inside her noggin that is too much for her vocabulary to keep up with. Maybe it's that she wants to show me how to play a game she learned at preschool. Or that she's afraid of something in her room at night that she can't articulate. Whatever the case, in that particular moment, I wonder if it's possible she believes she'll never possess the ability to say what she wants to say. Does she think that this is as good as it's gonna get?

It occurred to me that there are those moments when I act exactly like my two year old (you know, minus the crapping in my pants). I become frustrated and often disenchanted when I have ideas, thoughts, and artistic endeavors that I know are waiting to take shape, but that I don't yet have the means with which to articulate. What if I could see myself the way I see Ella, particularly when she's red in the face and upset that she doesn't have the words. No parent in their right mind looks at their child in this moment and belittles them by saying, "why don't you learn to talk correctly?" We understand this is just another minor obstacle to be hurdled as they grow into their own person. And so we coax it out of them. We tell them it's okay- to give it time. Maybe, then, we should view ourselves in the same light- as artists, wives, mothers. Most of us are positively certain we haven't reached our full potential (and tend to believe, perhaps, that it can't ever be reached). Even given this, there's often the tendency to interpret our momentary setbacks and missed opportunities as the closing chapter, when in reality, we're only half-way through the book.

Just something I've been thinking about lately...