Child Development Right In Front of My Eyes

I just got back from vacation with my family and I had some pretty interesting insight about my kids development. My twins Wolf and Dahlia are 14 months now and this is our first vacation longer than 2 nights since they were born. For me, it was the first time I ever spent that many consecutive days with my kids. Even when they were born, I only took about a week off. Ten straight days of constant contact with my kids, in contrast to my normal schedule (see them in the morning and night on weekdays and all day on the weekends). That’s what lead to a fascinating insight.

Child development is exponential and can be observed in real-time. That’s my insight. I think you’re somewhat blind to it if you spend all your time or only limited time with the kids. My wife is a stay at home mom and so she is able to spend every day with them. I’m an entrepreneur which has me see them on a frequent but limited schedule.

I watched my kids evolve right in front of me. One minute they understood how to say “bye bye” and wave when we explained that someone was leaving. The next minute they realized that people leave through the front door. I saw my daughter go to the door, when nobody was there, point and say “bye bye” and wave. She knew that was the place people leave from. We didn’t teach her that, she just figured it out.

They learn exponentially. My kids love their shoes. They love putting them on and walking around. They have many pairs. They know where we keep the shoes and go get them when we say to. One minute they know the concept of shoes. The next minute they know that there are different styles of shoes, different colors, ones for my son and ones for my daughter. I ask my daughter to get her shoes and tell her to get the pink Nikes, first try, nope; it’s my son’s white Adidas. I tell her no, those are Wolf’s shoes. She brings them to Wolf and disappears. She returns with the pink Nikes.

I think they even enjoy learning. They get a certain satisfaction when it “clicks”; it’s just inspiring to watch. When it’s cold, they wear hats. I think sometimes the hat’s itch, especially with the beanies. It was particularly cold one afternoon. We put the beanies on both Wolf and Dahlia. She didn’t like it so she tried to take it off. I said sternly, “no honey, it’s cold, you need to keep your hat on” and she did. About 30 minutes later, we were inside where it was warm. My daughter looked at me and pointed to her head. She friggin pointed at her hat and looked at me with questioning eyes and in silence she said “now daddy, it’s warm, can I take the hat off now?” I nodded and she pulled the hat off. I nearly lost it.

My wife see’s this stuff every day, but I don’t think she appreciates it as much because there is so much going on and she sees it all. Like me she is blind to the little things. It takes a change in perspective to see them. That change happened for me because I went from seeing them a little to seeing them a whole lot; I noticed a lot and I’m so happy to have had that experience and look forward to many more.