I’ve learned to step back while Ishu is in the middle of exploring something or playing with something independently. Because there have been so many times when I’ve wanted to intervene and show him something or elevate an activity. Only to find out that he definitely doesn’t need me to be doing that.

For example, one time we were at the Children’s Museum and they had this activity that was clearly put out to be sorted by color. Three sections, three colors of shells/rocks. So when he started to mix the colors, a part of me was like, “STOP THAT BEHAVIOR. PURPLE GOES HERE.”

But I didn’t intervene because I happened to be talking to this other mom in the room.

And, you know what?

When I was done talking, I realized he had been sorting by TEXTURE OF ROCK. He put the bumpy ones in one box. The spiky ones in the other. And the smooth ones in the third.

And what would have happened had I opened my big mouth to say, “SORT BY COLOR, SORT BY COLOR!”

It hadn’t even occurred to ME (the grown-ass grown-up) that you could try sorting in a different way.

My kid is smarter than me.

For sure.

So I need to step back and let him do his thing.

Yesterday, I laughed because we had pulled out the construction paper and pom-poms and I was so eager to get us sorting by color (yet again).

And this kid picked up a few pom-poms and kept calling them balloons.

Curious, I asked him, “How is this a balloon?”

He kept repeating, “Balloon. Red balloon. White balloon. Purple balloon.”

Upon closer inspection, I see what had happened.

The pom-pom had picked up some of my stray hair left behind on the carpet. So, to his little toddler eyes, they were in fact balloons. A circle + a string = a balloon.

This kid makes me laugh so much some days.

He really makes something out of “nothing” and I love watching his creativity grow.