Grasshopper New Media Presents...

It’s gift time around these parts-presents are being frantically ordered or selected online, toys fondled in stores, wine sniffed. We’re all busy plotting what we can feasibly ask for without seeming ridiculous or greedy. We’re all waiting to be surprised.

But today, while talking to my father, I realized that there is one gift I rarely ever think of. The gifts that my daughters possess.

Like many of us with multiple children, my two girls are night and day personality wise. My oldest is your standard first born-talkative, social, outgoing, brave, witty, sunny, literal. My second born, a little more reticent, cautious, methodical, creative. Where my first born will run around the house with a picture of Nefertiti yelling “NO QUEENS ALLOWED!,” my second is content to lay on the floor having a deep conversation with Flash and Bouncing Boy. Where one is loud, the other is quiet. One rips open her chest so the world can hear her heart. The other buries it in blankets and teddy so it makes nary a sound.

At times I worry for my first, Vivian. She’s 4 now, and shows no real desire to read or write, aside from a cursory desire to play Scrabulous with me. She recognizes the alphabet, numbers, her name, a few words, but won’t make a real effort at it. Her sister, almost 2 years younger, has shown more interest. (Although I will admit that I would prefer she makes those overtures toward the toilet instead at the moment) When I mentioned this at one of the school’s orientation sessions for next year,the literacy liason reassured me that it was normal, suggested a few exercises and then said,

“Maybe talking IS her talent. Maybe her gifts lie in how she relates to other people, not in what she takes in from a page.”

I’ll admit, I didn’t take too well to those words at first. When have you ever heard someone be complimentary about someone who won’t shut up? And trust me, as someone who is at times extremely introverted, I’ll confess to having some unkind thoughts about my daughter, she of the never ending external monologue. Relating is all fine and well, but my ears can only take so much. My ideal child is my second-quiet and sweet and bookish and imaginative with her toys, having little discussions and adventures, or taking things apart to put them back together again. Her gift, in my eyes, of being so imaginative, was wonderful! Vivian’s gift of gab, well….not so great.

But I got to talking with my father about them, about how magical it is to watch Rosalyn discussing “going walkies” with her superheroes when it occurred to me that perhaps that teacher was correct. Communicating with others, helping people understand your point of view, and maybe even agree, IS a gift – as great a gift as Rosalyn’s imagination. Without people like that, would we have lawyers, judges, mediators, storytellers, so many people who make our lives so rich in so many ways? Without people like Vivian, would people like Rosalyn ever have the chance to make their little worlds known?

I hadn’t truly viewed her personality, her essence as a gift before now, seeing it more as a weight, a battle. But now-now I’ve come to realize that it’s really a hidden gift, waiting to come to it’s fruition and bloom her into who and what she’ll really be.

I can wait. I love surprises.

by Thordora

[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, behavior, moods, personalities, personality, adjustments, acceptance, gifts, capabilities, capability, skill[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by lynnieb, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved