Egg Hunt

This weekend some of the cousins were in town. Everyone was over on Friday night and the playroom was ripped apart, tornado-style. At one point I looked around, thanked God I didn't have to clean up a mess like that every day, but also longed to clean up a mess like that, too. In part, toy boxes dumped upside down, blocks and animals and toy food strewn about every which way would mean Ethan is exploring. Again and again I'm reminded how much kids learn through play...and sometimes, wonder what Ethan isn't learning.

The weekend was rough, in some ways. I will be honest. There's something I've been dreading for awhile and the time has come. You see, Ethan has two cousins who are nine months younger than he is. Haddie (Dan's sister's daughter) and Matthew (Nate's son) are 19 months old now, and they are catching up to Ethan. Soon in some ways they will surpass him. This hurts.

Dan's parents wanted to do an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, inside because it was kind of raw out. So they hid eggs one at a time for each kid, starting with Haddie, who didn't quite get it at first but obligingly walked around and found some eggs, then picked up on the concept and started to have a little fun with the whole experience, taking a moment to look at the prize she was handed each time she found another egg. She wasn't wowed by the whole experience, but it was fun enough. Then came Ethan.

First -- the house was messy and the kids were loud. Every time we go over there, if Ethan is stressed or doesn't quite know what to do with himself, he heads over to the sliding door and plays with it...again and again. So he headed over there while the grandparents announced, "Time for egg hunt!" I was thinking, he needs time to adjust, then wondering how to balance his needs with other kids' needs who'd been waiting anxiously to start (or at least, the two older ones who'd been waiting anxiously, Anna and Haddie's brother, Isaac).

So after Haddie was done it was Ethan's turn, and I knew what he was thinking. He hates doing things for the sake of doing them. He needs them demonstrated first. He has to see the reason and the reward, and see it slowly. But we shoved an Easter basket into his hands (which he hadn't seen since last year) and said "go find the eggs!" The eggs were colored and again, he hasn't seen Easter eggs since last year, if he even remembers. So he started to go and follow where we pointed and put them in the basket, but then he saw a toy he liked and always plays with. He wanted to play with the toy of course. And then he got angry when we told him no, he needed to keep looking for eggs. And then Dan's mom started handing him prizes, which he promptly threw into the basket, too.

I could see the troubled wheels turning in his mind. Why am I doing this? What is this for? and with the prizes, I guess I just throw whatever they hand me into the basket. I felt my heart welling with compassion and longing.

Why is it so hard for him? I wondered, almost scientifically. And more philosophically, Why does this have to be so hard? By that I meant: watching him struggle. Watching him struggle with something that comes so easily to a typical child. Balancing when to cater to his fears and when to push him.

At first, I had dreaded the idea of Haddie and Matthew catching up to and surpassing Ethan because I was lost in a horribly unproductive comparison game I'd grown up doing. You see, at one time in the past I had been the evil mom secretly congratulating herself because her child was ahead on milestones (that was with Anna, and that was strictly because I was so insecure I was using it as a way to feel better about myself). But as time has gone by, that dread, when I experience it, is different. Now it's tinged not so much with resentment or bitterness as much as with a mom's full and sometimes heavy heart. I hate to see Ethan stressed and not understand... to have to work harder at the little things, like play...and to maybe someday, realize that he has to work harder. He has no choice.

We got home that night exhausted. Even Anna admitted she was stressed from the messy and crazy house, so I can't imagine how Ethan felt. Except that in some ways I can. When I had had a little time to think over the day and shed a few tears, I felt something solidify in me. I could let myself feel a bit down or discouraged, but I could also extract the emotion and think ahead. What could we do differently next time? Yes, he has these challenges, so how can we help him? How can we find a way to make things work?

I have to say this is so unlike me. I am not a natural go-getter or an optimist. In very many ways I am more like George McFly's character in Back to the Future, slinking away at the slightest hint of opposition, ready to crawl back under a rock somewhere. But my son deserves better. Truthfully, I've deserved better all of these years. I've lacked greatly in the ability to perserve and problem-solve rather than throw up my hands and throw in the towel.

And so, we had a fun but tiring weekend. A new week is here, and this morning I dumped out a toy box just to get Ethan to poke around a little. You know what? It worked. This week we're going to pratice Easter egg hunting until the process is not so menacing. And if that doesn't work? Then I'm going to remember that it's not the end of the world. Because really, in the grand scheme of things, it's not.