Slowing Down

My husband took note of a magnet I used to have on my refrigerator that said, "God, grant me patience -- and hurry up."

The school psychologist at the school where I work and the rooster attends told me the other day, "I don't think we are going to really figure out what is going on with him until he is seven or eight. But, on the other hand, we can't afford to wait that long to help him." Quite a little conundrum, that.

I fly at it all like some kind of corporate raider trying to sneak in fast and take over; the company is on shaky footing? Let me manage things and turn it all around! Except for about two dozen minor problems with that plan, not the least of which is that I have not a clue where to begin, and neither do the "experts" I keep running to as fast as our stroller will roll. Only rushing does no good; our rooster seems to be on his own unique clock.

Sometimes I get rattled by the fact that my husband doesn't race around life at the pace I do, but in this case, I'm the one who is out of synch. He just gets down on the floor with the rooster, no matter what chaos has just taken place, and he slowly addresses it. No rush to judgment, no expedited fix-it plan, just good, calm, slow dialogue eye-to-eye with the rooster boy. I'm trying very hard to learn from this, though clearly I am a hard case, as I've had that magnet going on eight years now with no measurable signs of improvement.

Yesterday, I lost my patience for probably the tenth time that day, and the rooster, who had been taunting his sister and stealing fruit out of the fridge after I'd said he'd had enough, came up to me with his preschool wisdom, plus some scripts he's picked up from two surgeries and four years of doctors. "Mommy? You okay? You need to breathe deep mommy. Breeaathe deeeeeeep. You breathe? Ahhhh. Breathe mommy." What could I do? Both Peaches and I looked at him, and at each other, and we both followed along, and took some long, slow, deep breaths.

There is a lot of work ahead of us, and it's not all for the rooster to do -- there is plenty of learning and adjusting to go around.