Think You Understand Kids? Have one!

That kids have to learn everything is something I didn’t fully understand until I became a parent. What I mean is I thought that I understood that before I had to walk a new human through the learning process. Children really have to learn every thing. If there’s something we adults take for granted as instinct, that a baby can’t do for itself, then there will be a time when that baby has to go through the painstakingly slow process of learning how to do that thing!

I mean, they have to learn they have feet for goodness sake! How could a baby not know it has feet?! But they don’t. Our son has learned to grab things, to eat without choking, how to fall asleep at night, when it’s appropriate to laugh and when it is not. (Ok, he’s still working on that one!)

And as surprised as I am at the staggering breadth and depth of what new humans have to learn, I am as equally in awe of how little I’ve had to teach him. We never really taught him to walk or talk, he just figured it out. But, surprisingly, the same has rung true for so many things that I thought new people had to sit down and have someone teach them about. Our son learned to count to ten and I have no idea when or how that happened. One day, seemingly out of the blue, he could do it.

Ironically, there were things I thought he could get on his own that I’ve had to carefully go through and instruct him on. How to wipe one’s own butt has been a subject of so…much…discourse. ‘Oh, come on,’ you’re saying. ‘How many ways can you possibly explain that simple process?’ The ways of explaining butt-wiping are many, I assure you.

Anyway, kids are weird, life is funny! I hope you’re enjoying your quirky little ones today!! I know I will be.
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Photo credit: By nilimage @ iStock by Getty Images