Ishu has this wooden stacking pegboard that we stored away in the closet for a couple weeks. With winter coming, we need his toys to provide EXTRA engagement.

So we put some things away with the plan to pull them out later. And, suddenly, a few weeks without this pegboard and it’s like a brand new toy for him.

He’s also learned a lot in those few weeks so watching him interact with this toy is a different experience.

Ankur’s been saying his colors with him at night. They watch the colors of our Hatch sound machine change every couple seconds and say the different color names over and over and over.

He definitely knows blue.

Other colors we’re not sure. But blue, he can always recognize.

So, imagine my excitement, when I heard him say “blue” each time he pulled out a blue peg from the Tupperware.

And THEN, he started to stack the blue ones on top of one another.

He said “blue” and put it down. Pulled out another blue one and said “blue” and stacked it on top of the other one.

MY KID IS SORTING COLORS, I thought!

Only for him to pull out a green one and stack it right on top of the blue pegs.

I reached over and then pulled back.

I could feel myself wanting to intervene, could feel myself wanting to say, “No, no, NO. That’s green. Start a new stack with green over there!”

But I didn’t.

In the same second I started to reach over with one hand, I pulled myself back with the other hand.

Step away from the kid, I told myself.

It took active effort on my part to sit there and not tell him how to play with his toy.

A few seconds later, I realized he had no intention of sorting the colored pegs. He wanted to stack the pegs one on top of another until the tower was so tall, it bent over.

“Ben-een (Bending)!” he squealed.

That little engineer brain always at work. Not interested in the colors, but more interested in how tall he can stack the pegs before they bend over.

A few minutes later, he had moved on to the next toy. And then I got my fix. This mama sat there and sorted out her colors in the way she wanted.

But I’m going to go ahead and pat myself on the back this time.

For stepping away from the child. For not intervening in his play. And for letting him use his own toys the way he wanted to use them.

They’re open-ended toys. There is no one right way to use these things.

But every time we jump in with our thoughts and opinions on how to do something, we don’t give our kids the opportunity to be creative. To discover things on their own.

It’s so hard to step back. But I can see how beneficial it is to simply let our kids BE without trying to control their play.

Step away from the kids.

They’ll surprise you every time.

And if you’re like me and need to get it out of your system? Wait ’til they’re done and you can sort the colors then. Ha.