Life is in “full speed ahead” gear. I stay busy being a wife, mom, stepmom, grad student and even widow (does one ever really lose that title?). I heard Dr. Walsh, renowned speaker on positive parenting speak last week and he said, “Whatever the brain does a lot of is what the brain gets good at.” Hopefully, I’m getting pretty good at some of the titles I hold. I don’t know if I will ever be very good at the “grad school homework” title. It seems like the words mom and homework don’t work so well in the same sentence. But, my son, Jordan really doesn’t want me to flunk out of grad school as he told his sister, “Then she will have to start the two year all the way over!”
Currently we calculate time in our household by how many teeth Maddi has lost. She is up to four teeth missing. Time is making her big. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy three nights ago asking when her next tooth would come out because one was very “wigaly.” The tooth fairy didn’t know the note was under her pillow, but found it two nights ago when Maddi’s tooth did fall out. This left some explaining for the tooth fairy about how she works a lot of doubles and can only write notes back during her break time. Who said the tooth fairy can’t teach the hard lessons about life?
I read this today by Ira Glass, “For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”
It reminds me that life is a lot of work. M0m-work, homework, tooth fairy work. Then I’m encouraged by Dr. Walsh. Whatever the brain does a lot of is what the brain gets good at. Loving, making a living, dreaming. The hard work gets us there.
