From Turbulence Comes Peace

The most helpful thing I ever learned in ECFE was.... shoot, I forgot the name of it. And I can't find the link.... But still, I'll share what I remember because it comes to mind often.

The Parent Educator once handed out a chart showing the basic stages of development for most healthy children along with the emotional and psychological state associated with each phase.

We kicked off the birth of this year's garden the best way we know how... mmmm, donuts!

Throughout childhood, so said the chart whose name I cannot remember or find, we move through waves of turbulence and discomfort, we expend a great deal of energy trying to resolve this turbulence, and we emerge on the other side in the calm waters of a new milestone... until, of course, its newness wears off and we feel turbulent again. This turbulence is famous in two-year-olds and teenagers. It is a little more subtle but common throughout the in between years.

The chart only went up through adolescence, but it had a note at the bottom that we continue to cycle through these phases throughout our life.

With her help, a new garden was born, full of pole beans, three kinds of bush beans, tons of tomatoes and peppers, cabbages, chard, spinach, and all sorts of other yummy things. I tossed in some coco hulls for mulch and it now smells like a candy bar.

Maya is just emerging from a somewhat turbulent phase. I'll spare you the details, but even at 5 little girls can be difficult to play with, and the poor kid is quite a bit younger than most of her playmates. She was frustrated for a while, and that frustration burst out in all sorts of little ways.

The bug hunt never really ends in our backyard.

Now, suddenly she seems at peace again, and she has clearly reached a new level of maturity or a new perspective on the world. She is enjoying her friends and exploring her world with a little more bravery and confidence than she had just a short while ago. Her demeanor is all little girl. My baby only really peaks through when she skins a knee or stays up too late.

Elle really enjoyed Joe's project best.

It's lovely to see. Especially since Elliot has suddenly become the (slightly) turbulent one, staging tantrums that silence entire buildings. Living in a family is challenging, partly, because even us adults go through our turbulent stages from time to time. Between the lot of us, someone is always struggling to reach that next plateau. But somehow, it is always a thrill to see what emerges on the other side.