Miraculous Conception?

The subtleties of the silent treatment are lost on my four-year-old. She may notice that mommy is not talking, heck she'll come right out and ask. "Mommy, why aren't you talking to me?" But she has absolutely no idea that I am remaining speechless because she refused to help me with the baby when I needed it. Payback? How does that complicated and juvenile, and all the while ADULT concept even enter her world?

The answer? It doesn't. Plain and simple. Yet it is completely logical to me, at the time. Why do we try to impose our adult standards and sensibilities on our children?

I must keep reminding myself that she is only four. She sees the world in a completely different way than I. And she is not the one who needs to change. I am. I cannot possibly expect her to keep her room clean on her own, or remember to brush her teeth every day, or understand why chocolate is not a dinner side dish. It is my job to help her along in her world until she is old enough to join mine. (Do I even want that? Most days I think her world is much better than mine.) It is my job to ease her in to my world, not expect the miraculous conception of an adult mind in a child's body.

And this is a task I plan to take a long time accomplishing! A very long time...