Greatest Treasure

One of my fondest memories was of my son when he was about two years old. I was watching TV and he was playing quietly on the floor near me. He turned to me and outstretched his hands with the most warm, loving, giving, happy smile I have ever seen on any human's face. Delighted he had a treasure to share with me, I held out my hands for it and purred, "For me? Oh thank you!!"  Still slightly distracted by the TV, I paused before I looked down to see what had been gifted to me.

It was a nugget the size of my fist straight out of his diaper.

To this day I still remember how charmed his face was, and how lovingly he had cradled this thing that turned out to be poo.

"One man's trash, another man's treasure" doesn't even begin to cover it. :) And doesn't it seem always that way with children? We throw out so many things they long to play with. Eggshells, empty ice cream wrappers, sticks on the lawn. My youngest son used to cry every time we had Popsicles - one day I realized he was crying every time I threw out the empty wrapper.

I will never know quite why, in that moment, my son decided that his giant poo was the greatest thing in the world. But my tolerance of his own strange perceptions is constantly being challenged. So many times he says something that is untrue - and I am so used to deeming untruths as not valuable that I discount his perceptions. I throw them away.

It's not a very nurturing instinct, to throw away his understanding of the world. Much better for me to help him work through the world on his level. When I can manage to admire the poo for a while, he's much more cooperative with me when the time comes to put it where it belongs and wave to it cheerfully as we flush it.

It's true of all his perceptions. I can see that my youngest is happy in the sandbox, but yet my oldest is convinced the baby is gunning for all his toys. No matter what I say I can't change that perception. I know this, but I try anyway to flush away the inaccurate view. Instead I need to go along with his perception, and teach him the words to use to protect his toys, so that he feels secure.

Louis CK does a funny bit about this. You can watch it here: "Pig Newtons!"