Two major milestones occurred with my daughter in the past few weeks: She clocked one (Yay!), and took her first baby step – all by herself (double yay!) As can be expected, my hubby and I are ecstatic, same goes for her two older siblings who can’t help being thrilled to watch her walk. Of course, ever since she started walking, I’ve had less ‘me’ time and have switched roles from Mommy to Bodyguard. She wants to go everywhere her little feet can take her, and that includes the bathroom to play with the toilet water and the kitchen to try out the knobs of the stove. Perhaps, she’s going to be the next Top Chef in Bravo’s TV cooking contest, who knows?
On her little face, I see beams of joy when she walks; well, more like totter. Since she has yet to master the fine art of walking with a nice steady gait, it isn’t uncommon to see her fall. And several times too. One would think that in spite of all her many falls that she would just sit out the rest of her walk, ehrm…Again, I mean, totter. But my daughter? Oh no! She is up, in a quick flash too, like nothing ever happened. In fact, her next step is often taken with a bolder attitude. I’m thinking God blessed her with the strongest bones possible, because if it were me doing a third of her falls, I would be a paralytic by now.
So it occurred to me this morning as I watched her take her walk,- pardonez moi, I meant totter, – accompanied by more than one fall that it would be super nice if I learned to deal with life’s challenges the way my daughter deals with her tottering. Instead of sitting down in self-pity and becoming resigned to the seemingly insurmountable task that always has me landing on my butt whenever I try to tackle it, I could just get up, shake off the dust of failure, and keep on working to overcome my challenge until I’m its master.
Life was never meant to be lived without a few bumps in the road and for some, if not for most of us, we’ve got more than a few bumps in our life’s journey; more like humongous portholes it seems. But we don’t have to give up on life. We don’t have to let the task of living be our master. We could just get up, it’s a choice by the way – shake it off and keep at it. We may be tottering now, but if we keep at it, we’ll walk. We’ll even run and some very lucky ones may fly in the success of being part of the living. The most important thing is to remain constitent, taking it one day at a time until that challenge is well managed or totally disappears.
From my heart to your heart, have a most lovely day!
Reflections from Parenting 