Allowing Growth to Happen

Because I am single sided deaf and tend to sleep on the side which has my good ear, I often don't know that our son is awake until he comes to waken me, or a loud noise penetrates my pillow.  That was the case this morning.  I was startled awake by a noise that I quickly realized was the sound of plates being put gently (please interpret sarcasm here) into the kitchen cupboard.  This sound effectively launched me into full consciousness.  I called to our son and asked him to come see me.  As soon as he entered our bedroom, I could tell by the gleam in his eye and the telltale vibration of energy coming off of him that he was in one of his excited, fixated states.  He was a man on a mission.

I took a deep breath and asked him what he was up to.  He told me that he was unloading the dishwasher for me and making his breakfast.  When I started to get out of bed, he quickly exclaimed "I only have the easy stuff to do now.  The spoons and forks and knives."  With that pronouncement, he quickly scampered out of the room.  I quickly got around and went out to see what state the kitchen may be in.  To my pleasant surprise, things looked pretty good.  He had streudel in the toaster and was pulling peanut butter out of the cupboard in his jittery, manic state of unrestrained happiness.  I told him I would finish getting his breakfast around if he wanted to finish putting the silverware away.  He spun around and grabbed the milk out of the fridge, then spun back around and started putting the silverware where it belonged.  Full on energy burst.  Woohoo!

Because his energy can sometimes feed my own, I took a deep breath and took stock of the situation.  He had used a step stool to put the high items away but had even put that back where it belonged.  Nothing was broken.  For once, nothing was spilled or strewn about.  The kitchen looked pretty good.  As he spread the icing on top of the peanut butter I had spread on his streudel, he looked at me and said "I wanted to do something for you because you do so much for me.  You pack my lunch and cook my food.  You're always doing stuff for me.  I wanted to do this for you."  Wow.  Total heart melt.  

This small morning interaction brought home several very important points for me.  The first is that he does see and recognize what we are doing for him out of love.  Sometimes it doesn't feel that way when we are battling over completing homework or cleaning up after himself.  It's nice to know that he does appreciate us.  The second is that he has the empathy skills to desire to do something back for someone that does for him.  So often, it seems as if kids these days are lacking empathy and compassion for others.  We've tried really hard to instill that in our children. It was nice to see the evidence that our hard work may be paying off.  Finally, my little guy isn't so little any more.  He is growing up.  Maybe I need to stop working so hard to protect him from failure and rejection and let him spread those little wings and start to experiment with flying.  It doesn't mean I won't be there to help him when he stumbles and protect him when there's danger.  It just means I need to let him make mistakes, learn from independent experiences, and experiment with who he is and who he may become.  When we came so close to losing him in the past, it's hard to take that step back but independence and self-sufficiency is our ultimate goal.  I need to let my little bird start to fly.