Being Adults

When people talk about having children and how wonderful they can be for one's life, they always mentioned how fullfilling the children can be, bring laughter and creating memories each other new day that you'll not exchange for anything else in the world. One good benefit that I would like to add to the list, if it has not already been mentioned (or at least I know, not very often), is that children really teaches us lessons that we, being adults, don't normally (re)learn at our age.

I was once very upset with Ryan. Being an autistic child, he would sometimes (well actually, most of time) whines and scream on little things that upsets him. I was in the middle of finishing my report due for the next day and had tons of other urgent but unimportant stuffs on my mind. Tried very hard to clam him down, making him happy but nothing seems to work. He kept wanting to use the computer I was working on. In a fit of anger, I shouted at home to stay out of the study, and he cried even louder.

Heidi was beside all along playing her toys. She simply made a remark that goes something like "Why do you have to make him cry? See. He wants to play, let him play. Why did you shout at him? Ryan cry, you shout, then he cry louder and louder..."

It woke me up a little. The report wasn't so urgent that I couldn't just save my work and let Ryan use the computer for 15 minutes. It's my mindset that I shouldn't be disturbed at that instance.

I stopped working for an hour after hearing Heidi. She had opened my mind and taught me to relax a little. And of course to treat Ryan better. Played 15 minutes of computer (Youtube) with him and moved on to the other urgent but unimportant stuffs before heading back to my report. Everything else went smooth thereafter.

There. One old lesson that I'd relearn through my daughter. And maybe more from Ryan.