Charting Territories
I arrive at S’s daycare between 3:30 and 4pm. That gives us a couple of hours of play before his bedtime. I see him interacting with his friends through the glass door. The educator must have said something because he turns around and sees me. He pulls his arms down, clenches his fists and beams squealing in the kind of way J said I must have when I saw Gavin Rossdale from Bush when I was 14. S does this several times but doesn’t walk towards the door. Only when the educator opens the door and tells him to “go see mama” he walks over to give me a hug. He then promptly waddles off down the hallway, assured, to demonstrate his proprioceptive ability to be in the space, to show me that this is his territory.
“He’s very obedient, you see, he won’t go past the doorway because he has been told we have to play in here” Christie, his educator, tells me proudly.
I smile and she continues to tell me that he is an astute listener, especially for being only 14 months old. I wonder where he gets this from because I defy all instruction even if it’s good for me.
I tell his dad later, “He will have it much easier in life if he learns that following instructions can help him achieve what he wants, whatever that may be.”
Certainly, his life course is already easier than mine since he is a boy and has loving parents that mostly love each other too.
I let him walk around the daycare hallway, peering into the windows of the other doors, seeing the other kids play. I want him to feel secure so that he can take more chances. The more comfortable he is with his surroundings the more opportunities there are for him to explore them. He's charting his orientations. He's figuring out who he is and his place in the world by learning about boundaries.
The next day I pick him up and he does the same squeal. Two mothers who are picking up kids at the same time both look over and giggle, “tres mignon, tres mignon”
“Oui, c’est mon fils, il est un ‘goof’” I reply with broken syntax.
His grins welcome me when I pick him up from daycare. How can a human be happy to the hilt? How do I nurture this comfort with joy forever?
As bell hooks points out in her New School lecture: “What I want is people to feel comfortable in the circumstance of risk because if we wait for safety, the bell hooks that wasn't sure she could get on stage would never have gotten on that stage."
-16 March 2017