“I can do it.” “What’s that?” “What are you doing?” She’s not even 2.
“I can do it,” she says as she climbs into the high kitchen chair and I cringe at the thought that she might fall. “I can do it,” she corrects me as I arrogantly think I know how to whip scrambled eggs together better than she does. “I can do it.” “I can do it.”
“What’s that?” She noticed the wind. “What’s that?” She has officially learned the word tampon. “What’s that?” She finds something new every day, no routine monotony for her.
“What are you doing?” I now narrate my life. “What are you doing?” I’m driving, cooking, getting dressed. “What are you doing?” Having to admit that I am looking at Facebook makes me put the phone down.
Not even 2 but capable, confident, ready to learn, observant, and eager. I would be lying if I said I always embrace her questioning and assertiveness. There are times, like when we are trying to rush out the door, when I wish she was less independent because putting her shoes on for her would be so much faster. There are moments – like when I have informed her for what feels like the thousandth time that the thing in my hand is a fork and I am eating my dinner – when I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Despite the moments where patience lacks, I want my daughter to continue to put those three phrases, “I can do it”, “What’s that?”, and “What are you doing?” on repeat for the rest of her life. In my adultness I have learned to be in a rush. I have learned to think I know more and I have stopped asking and started telling how it should be. I have lost the positive attitude that tells me I can do it and replaced it with thoughts of what I should do, have to do, and wish I had time to do.
Worse yet, I have stopped asking questions and in doing so have short-changed my learning. This is not what I want my daughter to aspire towards because the truth is she can do it, and questioning the world is better than blindly accepting it.
She can do it. As she grows and faces competition, failure, and fear, may she remember the words she spoke as a toddler and carry on with that same confidence. She can do it, and she will. She may not succeed on the first try, or as fast as she would like, but that doesn’t change the fact that success awaits her. With each new accomplishment she is building her self-esteem, establishing her independence and claiming her confidence. She is climbing chairs that will one day be mountains and putting on shoes that will one day walk her down the path less traveled, carved out by the bold and the brave.
She is questioning her world rather than accepting it. She is in a constant state of learning, unafraid to ask and expectant of an answer. Is there a better way to expand our horizons, to expose ourselves to new ideas, cultures, and ways of doing? We ask not solely because we don’t know, but because we are ready to know, because we refuse to shut the door to knowledge. We question because we think and my daughter will know how to think for herself. “What’s that?” and “What are you doing?” will challenge others when peer pressure attempts to push her down and it will separate her from the crowd and strengthen her decision making. I want her to always question what she doesn’t know and in return freely share her own knowledge with others. May I never forget to do the same.
We grow and we lose sight of the fact that we are capable; that no matter our age the world can still be at our feet, but we will never know it all. Dreams go unrealized, goals unattained, routine and acceptance of what is takes over, and maybe the root of it all is that we have forgotten what it is like to walk as a toddler. We have lost our confidence amidst failures and have stopped asking with expectancy to learn, holding back question due to fear of rejection.
Adultness does not always mean we know more – it means we have had more time to forget the lessons of childhood. So thank you, dearest daughter, for the reminder that we can do it and that for all that we don’t know, there is a question we can use to find out.
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