It's all in the details...

“Mommy, turn on the weather channel! Please! Please! Please!”

My youngest and only daughter would yell this throughout the day when she was a mere 2 years old. I remember thinking it was strange. I didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it as she was the youngest of four and the three older children were boys ages 8, 6 and 4 that I was homeschooling. So truthfully, anything that made her happy and quiet for me to teach math was unquestioned and welcomed. She would watch that weather channel and flit around the room…

My eldest son builds things. He has been building and inventing things since he was just a babe. Cloth blocks became Bristle blocks. Bristle blocks became wooden blocks. Wooden blocks became Mega blocks. Mega blocks became Legos. Legos were accumulated at a phenomenal rate. Bins and bins of legos. I mean multiple, LARGE storage bins overflowing with legos…not boxes, not directions…just millions upon millions of tiny little pieces of legos. I would find a piece on the floor and proceed to just throw it in the garbage – after all we are housing millions of these things. But he always caught me and knew exactly which piece that was and what the plan for it was going to be…

My youngest son has always been my observer. I remember carrying him around on my hip even after my last baby was born. He wanted to see. He wanted to watch everything I did. He didn’t say much. Just watched. His head was on a constant swivel – never missing anything. He observed all that was done around him and learned. He was patient. Patient in a ridiculous way that a 2 year old should just not be. Not much to say though. One day he asked to go out and shoot baskets on the basketball hoop in the driveway. He was a little over 2. He did not want the pole lowered. He kept it at regulation height (and he knew what that meant.) I watched him out there (from inside the house, hiding behind the curtains) alone for 3 and a half hours. He shot ball after ball, aiming patiently for the hoop. Quietly, observing his surroundings – taking it all in. Watching the ball. Watching the hoop. During that time, he put that ball through the hoop one time...

My second son began walking at 8 months old. The goose eggs on his head were frightening. He asked for his training wheels to be removed when he was 2. The first time he got on it, he rode around and around the court like he had been doing it for years. When he was 3, he decided he was going to surf. This idea became a part of who he was. I remember getting him a boogie board when he was 4. When we showed him how to hold it and ride, he threw a tantrum. He wanted to stand on it. When he was five, he had a surfing themed birthday party. That’s when he got his Indo Board. He practiced on that Indo Board for years. Eventually he picked up skateboarding. Same premise I suppose. He subscribed to Surfing magazine and talked of moving to Hawaii…

I later realized that my daughter loved the instrumental music on the Weather Channel. It inspired her. It made her want to dance in ways unlike the music videos or contemporary music. She has since grown into a lovely ballerina with her heart set on dancing with a professional ballet company one day. She is driven in a way that I could not have developed and sometimes do not even understand. This is her passion and obviously what she feels meant to do.

My eldest son went to an open house for a new high school that we were contemplating. The door opened into an amazing room. The Robotics lab. I saw his eyes. It was something that all of the suggestions that I had made through his life for sports, tiger cubs, or Christian Service Brigade would never bring to him. He joined the Robotics team this year. Built a phenomenal robot and headed off to the World Championships. Of course he did. At 2 years old, it was obvious. “Mommy, wook at what I beeult…” the words rang in my ears…

My third son is an all round athlete. Is the most outstanding player on any specific team? No. But he is the most tenacious athlete with every sport – football, wrestling, lacrosse. He has played organized sports for 8 years now and has never had a coach that didn’t approach us and tell us what a dream he was to coach. His focus is unmatched. His heart for the sport is apparent. We also call him “The Reporter”. He is aware at all times of the circumstances of every one of us around him. He is still a guy of few words – but acutely aware of all of our emotions – our likes and dislikes – our hurt or happiness. He observes all of us and makes sure to report to the rest of us what we may be too busy in our lives to be noticing. I count on him for that. He is observant in a very blessed manner. I can’t wait to see what he does with that…

My second son has saved his money and purchased his first surfboard at the age of 14. His life has been filled with numerous activities and he certainly has not grown up knowing anyone who leads the surfer life. Yet he has always felt called to this. We’ve encouraged many other things…and he has participated in those things and even excelled in fabulous ways with some. But somewhere inside of him the longing to surf held fast. We recently took him to the beach for his first excursion with his board. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. He repeatedly asked me if I had brought the camera. He wanted pictures of him surfing. So with a zip of a wetsuit and the Velcro leashed to his ankle he was off. To my astonishment, he caught wave after wave, standing immediately, weaving and riding to the shoreline. I watched in amazement while he did this for 4 consecutive hours. It was then that it all hit me.

When my children were born – they were already wired with their passions. But their passions were evident from a very early age. I didn’t realize these things until later when I could look back and remember those sweet toddler moments and then made the connection. If I could go back to each of them and look in their 2 year old eyes when she pleaded for the Weather Channel during my favorite television show, or when he cried to be carried on my hip while watching me cook in the kitchen when I was so busy preparing for that dinner party, or when the latest creation was being rushed to me for my approval and in my haste to finish the laundry I replied with a generic “MMhmm”, or the day that he had the tantrum because he wanted to stand on a boogie board and I fussed at him for not obeying and threatened to take him home.

I missed it. I could point them in 100 directions. Make 1,000 suggestions. Sign them up for every idea I had. Register them for all the things that I thought they should try. Things I liked. Things my husband was interested in. Things we had both done. But if I had been still long enough – I would have seen that I was being given foresight into their futures, who they would become, their passions, and their destinies. I was being given the opportunity to share their anticipation… A chance to catch a glimpse of who they were going to be without my suggestions. But I didn’t get it back then. I’ve learned a lesson – pay attention. Pay careful attention to the details when they are little, because what I considered details- they considered main ideas.