Perfecting

Raising kids is an amazing lesson in self-discovery. When I look at them, I see the things I am, and the things I am not. Sometimes I get frustrated at the things they do differently from me, mostly because I don't understand them. But there are times I am awed by who they are and wonder at how they became the people they are.

Here's a (not so well guarded) secret about me: if something doesn't come easily to me, I give up. I have no patience for something that takes time or effort. Luckily, there have been quite a few things that I'm good at, but I guess that's been a double-edged gift. If everything were a little difficult, I imagine I would have learned persistence. But since there were things that I was very good at, I could just dismiss the hard stuff as beyond my interest, perhaps even below me.

My dearest Maïa, though gifted at a number of things, has the guts to go out and try and try and try again at the stuff she finds difficult. Now, it's not always an easy road to get her to try something in the first place, especially if she's afraid. But once she's decided that she's going to do it, there is no standing in her way. She will do it, and try it, and try it again. Until it's perfect. Then she'll do it some more, just because she's good at it now (who doesn't like the feeling of doing something that's now fun and easy?).

Last summer, Derek and I tried to get Maïa to play on the monkey bars. Just to go from one rung to another – with us holding her, even. No way. She was so afraid of falling that she wouldn't even consider it. You wouldn't recognise that girl now; she has calloused hands and can go a dozen rungs (hand over hand) without falling. And when she does fall, she gets back up there and goes again. And again. In fact, this past spring, I had to threaten to take away some privileges if she went on the monkey bars again since her little hands were literally bloody from the effort. Yet she wouldn't stop.

Back in late June, Maïa decided to learn to play O Canada on the keyboard. She persisted for a full day, playing the notes over and over again, until she got it right. Then she moved on to another song. Then another. Now she can play about eight songs (one-handed) on the keyboard, all of which she learned by ear and almost without any help from me or Derek.

And just yesterday, after a full season of trying to get Maïa back on her bike, she finally did it. She needed the inspiration, and a new little girl on our lane with the very same bike as Maïa's, whooshing up and down the lane, was just what I might have thought of, if it weren't so perfect a situation. So Maïa asked to get her bike out, put on her helmet and zoomed around our lane like an expert. She hadn't ridden so enthusiastically since last fall. That isn't to say she didn't fall, because she did. But she just got right back up, dusted herself off, looked up and said, "I'm okay!" And off she rode again.

This morning, before I was even dressed and before the sun came out from behind the big storm clouds, she was asking to go bike riding again.