Capturing Concentration

At 3 or at 6, even the simplest things are difficult. It's very easy to give up. It might be figuring out how to tie the laces on a sneaker (Evan), hold the stencil still enough so that the picture you draw isn't wobbly (Muffin) or trying not to fall off the balance beam even if it is 4 inches above the ground (Jordan).

We keep telling them to keep at it. So they do, albeit reluctantly at times. And when they do try, the look of concentration and focus on their faces makes me want to shush everything around them while silently waving pom poms for them.

I am glad I caught these three snapshots. I put it together into a  collage to remind them of how hard they worked and when they eventually got it right (and all 3 did eventually) how it made it all the more worthwhile.

I didn't include those pictures, the victory and immense satisfaction ones because those are memories easily remembered. These ones, they will forget, especially when it becomes second nature to them.

But it will probably do them good if, in an existential and contemplative mood one day, they wondered how was it that they had figured out all these supposedly simple things and recalled the sheer grit they had to have had to go from "I don't know how to do this" to "I can do this with my eyes closed". And the revelation that if they could do that at 3 or 6, where ever they would be in life at that point, they could probably summon up the same grit to overcome what ever they needed to.