Stairs

A few days ago I was watching my son and realized he doesn't remind me of my husband. JAC doesn't have Jess' level headed composure. Instead he is fiery, opinionated and obstinate like me. I'm sure as he gets older he and Jess might seem more alike but at the moment he seems a lot like me.

For months I have been watching him climb up our basement stairs. He typically climbs four stairs, stops, looks down and then cries. He won't climb back down even though he knows how to. I share the same aversion to going backwards. Occasionally this aversion pushes me towards success but many times I just end up stuck. For instance I was never very good at soccer because I hated passing the ball backwards. I had my heart set at moving towards the goal. I also hate travelling in reverse to get home. On Friday we ended up lost in northern Maryland because I didn't want to turn around and hit the highway to get home. I kept telling Jess there had to be another way if we just kept driving. It turns out there wasn't another way home. By the time I gave in, reversed and headed for the highway my husband had a huge headache -poor guy.

Today JAC made it up all twelve basement stairs unassisted. I could tell he was proud of himself. As usual he stopped on the fourth stair and started to cry. Then, he looked forward and just kept going. It reminded me that sometimes you might spend months stuck in a rut trying to get forward and then the right moment, on the right day will come along and you won't look back and you'll be at the top.