A Series of Developments

Develop – 1. To realize the potentialities of / to aid in the growth of; strengthen 2. To cause to unfold gradually 3. To bring into being, make active 4a. To progress from earlier to later stages of individual maturation

Development – 4. A significant act or occurrence.

(The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Definition, Houghton Mifflin 1982)

Oddly, though stages of development and developmental milestones often connote positivity and progression, they can carry with them a perfect storm of emotions and concerns for both parent and child. This past weekend we had two of our three children deal with major milestones and my husband and I kept making eye contact across rooms – eyebrows levitated to shockingly high degree – as we watched our progeny hurdle across previously untouchable barriers. Our middle child remained a pocket of happiness and relative calm; he turned the household upside down last year with his concerns over a new brother and the beginning of kindergarten.

My daughter headed off to her first Girl Scout camp – a sleepaway camp which required her to be away from home for two whole nights. She had only ever had one sleepover in her life, and that was next door. I have to confess that I had a hard time weeding out my own childhood fears and dislike of sleepovers when I was counseling her about her concerns. I knew that she really wanted to attend; she had tried to go last spring but fell ill with a fever at the last minute (either viral or psychosomatic). She nearly backed out last week, too, but we discussed the situation wherein you can have two strong feelings within yourself, and you have to choose which one to really listen to / act on even while you are sympathetic to the other.

So she decided to go, and left me in the parking lot of the school in the beginnings of a snowstorm, overly bright-eyed and quivery of lip but resolute in her decision. She had a great time, and though she confessed to me “there were a few tears that first night, mom” she was so proud of herself. I am proud of her, too – over the moon, actually – and pleased that I didn’t cry, either. I felt like I was missing a limb most of the weekend and checked the weather report reflexively every time I turned on the computer, but feel joyful that she is unfolding, that her character, her desires and her motivations are becoming clearer just as a photographic image emerges through processing. (Ironically, the subtitle on the dictionary that I used for this definition of development claims it is the “The single source for people who need to be right.” That used to be true of me, but as a parent ‘rightness’ has lost its meaning and desirability. Part of letting our kids grow up is letting go of that need to be right and just holding onto the need to be good.)

While she was gone our youngest child moved through an emotional steeplechase of his own. He has two baby books of memories from Guatemala, with photos, postcards and documents of his babyhood, our first meeting, and our journey to Colorado. He has requested that we read these to him periodically over the past 18 months, showing varying degrees of interest and curiosity in their contents, but last week he picked up the professional photo book and requested it continuously. He pored over the contents, his eyes filling with tears, as he saw a sorrowful younger self in the montage of photos representing our first days together. “Why I sad?” he asked us, chin wobbly. “Where you?” We tried to explain that he was having a hard time saying good bye to his friends, that he was meeting us for the first time and it is always hard to say good bye to people and places that you love. We watched with our hearts in our throats as he grappled with the idea that he had lost something, that he had a life before us which we did not share and could not help him remember beyond our photos and the information we could procure in our short time in the orphanage. He looked at a photo of his sister by his crib and asked “where is her bed?” We had to explain that neither she nor his older brother had lived there, that their beds were in the house in Colorado. At this point he would give up the photos and launch himself at my chest or my husband’s crying “mommy, mommy” or “daddy, daddy.”

Our hearts were so full, the weight of his emotion and the depth of his loss pulling our eyes open to his reality as if our heart-strings were actually connected to our lower eyelids. We discussed what to say, how to confirm his feelings as good and right while reassuring him that he would be stuck with us forever now, that as far as we can control his changes are over. We consult friends and therapists for the right words as we continue to follow his lead in exploring his realizations and his past, which is such a large part of his young life. Even as he grapples with the knowledge of his loss and his uniqueness in our family, he develops closer ties to his siblings every day, exhibits more calm and focus in his school and his tasks at home, and puts down roots with friends and teachers. The dual prongs of development, pain and progress, function side by side in his 32-pound self and he shows amazing flexibility and depth as he incorporates this new understanding. We are so blessed to witness the growth and emergence of our children as unique individuals, each step another miracle in the chain of miracles that began with their birth.