More Thoughts on Learning to Walk

I'm still thinking about toddlers and persistence. To wit:

1. Nobody ever says, "You stupid baby -- you should have figured it out faster." We cheer her on. Five steps in a row! You did it, sweetie! I imagine our Father and older siblings in heaven watching our wobbly steps with the same elation, and it chokes me up.
2. Learning hard things means you focus on one thing at a time. It rarely works to change five habits at once. I think that's one of the things that frustrated me about Holly Pierlot's book. If she changed her whole life in one fell swoop, why couldn't I?
3. My daughter's eagerness to try out her new skill evaporates when she is tired. When she needs sleep, she sticks with what she knows: crawling is not the way the big kids do it, but it works for the moment. This should be a lesson to her mother, who tends to stay up too late and feel vaguely tired and stuck a lot of the time.

I am also thinking that my life is out of balance. If I am thinking that I don't have time to get to daily Mass, or exercise, or stop in the Adoration chapel, or go out and do something fun in the evening -- then something needs to shift.

From tonight there are 40 days left until Christmas. I am completely unready and school pressures on me are only going to increase as the end of the semester approaches. I'd been thinking that I was going to do a 40-day countdown, and maybe I still will. But for the first five days of it I'm starting small. I'm going to pray daily for discernment about what, exactly, the things are that needs to shift. I'm going to plan meals each morning for the day, and get one load of laundry done (folded, too) each day, and not spend time on the computer unless the kitchen sink is empty. And I'm going to get to bed before 10:45 at night, which means I need to wrap this up and hit publish -- even though it leaves me feeling a little naked.