Navigating the simple life of a 3-year-old
Our youngest grandson, a 3-year-old with pyrotechnics stuffed somewhere in the lower half of his back, typically flies through the house at a pace that is just below the speed of light. As an ole dude, I find it astounding to watch.
Sometimes he’ll simply run in large circles, dodging furniture and people along with his cat and dog for what seems like 20 minutes. Then he’ll crash to the floor with the recklessness and commitment of a 20-something linebacker who missed a game losing tackle.
Like all kids of this age, this calorie burning machine of innocent youth is just one more fascinating example of a miracle of nature.
When you learn that a developing child’s brain can add 250,000 neurons every minute until the age of two and have 80 percent of all the brains he’ll ever have, you begin to understand the complex thoughts that must be flying between those neurons. Talk about neuroplasticity.
One of the things he does that is just crazy fun, comes from somewhere deep within that 2 pound, 3 ounce brain of his. He hears, and then carefully modifies and amplifies stories to suit his own understanding and belief system. Last week, for example, his mother walked into the garage where the door had been open, and a bird swooped past her head. She helped it find the exit and a few minutes later, it escaped.
Last night, Pete announced at the dinner table “One time, there was a burrrrd that was trapped in the gawage. It flew white past my head and landed in my hands. Its wing was huuurt. So, I taped it with duck-tape, and it flew away.”
The last time I visited him was a day after a contractor had visited his house. His parents are working with a friend to finish their basement, and their discussions had all been about the potential layout of this new space. He had heard them talk about enlarging the bathroom, adding a wall for his teenage brother’s bedroom, closing in an area for storage, and creating a sitting space with a Foosball table.
As I looked over at Pete, he got a very serious expression on his face, looked back at me and started talking in rapid fire as he walked forcefully through the room using pillows and toys to mark off his idea of how things were about to change. “The new wata heater is here, and Judy’s woom will be by da window. The Foossssssball table will be dare, and the cats will live unda here.”
We were all in stitches as he laid out his design ideas for the new finished ground floor. The best part was that somewhere along the line, he had heard a somewhat heated disagreement about adding a bar, as he said, “And the @#%^ bar won’t go here or there or anywhere.”
One of the happy time things that he and I do is play together in his room. He hides in a little tepee, and I pretend to be a bear scratching at the sides of the tent.
He screams, and I reach in and tickle him silly. This time, however, he insisted on playing a different game where I was the mother. I tried to explain this was biologically impossible, but he said, “Look, Pappa, you are the mom, and I am the kid, and that’s da way it is.”
An old friend called the other evening in the middle of this game, and I put him on speaker phone. The little guy went into the tepee, waited patiently for about three minutes, crawled out, looked at me and said, “Tell that man to go away.” So, as my friend and I laughed out loud, I told my friend to get lost.
Oh, if life were that simple.
Nick Jacobs of Pittsburgh is a Partner with SunStone Management Resources and author of the blog healinghospitals.com.