Levi is 3 1/2 years old. He was born impatient. From his first days home from the hospital, it was painfully (literally) obvious that he did not have the patience to nurse for longer than 2-3 minutes. He didn't like the closeness. He didn't want to wait around for more food. This continued to his first highchair days - where he would turn purple screaming for more food - faster, faster... He also displayed tendencies that I called "picky", but his dad likes the word "particular" better. His cup had to be on the correct side of his plate. As you can imagine, before he could talk, this was most upsetting for us all. I remember nearly pulling my hair out as he would scream for an hour for no apparent reason - only for us later to find out that things in his world were not "just so". His impatience for us to catch on to his desires was exasperating us all. I've become thankful that he is now aged to a point where reason is at least a possibility and boundaries are much more easily set and goals achieved.
We still have our moments, however, (or whole days) when he loses all control. Where's Waldo, for example... for the rest of my children, this is a relaxing game... something we might play to settle down before heading to bed - not so for Levi. First of all, he is amazing at finding Waldo. He beats me, hands down, every time. I am amazed at how he can look at a book page or game card for less than 10 seconds - having never seen it before - and have Waldo spotted... along with whatever else we ask him to find. He beats everyone in the house - most of the time. It's that contingent - the few times that he can't find Waldo right away - that he loses his mind. It starts with faster breathing as the panic sets in. I watch as his fists tighten into hard, little, balls. His face gets redder and redder, and he starts to shake until he shouts, "I CAN'T FIND WALDO!!" If (and that's a big if) we manage to get him calmed down, we might be able to start over and help him out. Most of the time, however, thing deteriorate to a point where he throws the book or card on the floor, and that's the end of reason.
This afternoon, as I was helping carve and de-seed pumpkins and squash with the girls, Levi was playing with a branch that had come down near one of our evergreen trees. Somehow the branch ended up offending him, because I heard him screech and looked over to find him picking up the branch and trying to beat it against the ground. He was screaming and pounding it on the ground when it bounced back up and smacked him again. The gloves came off, and he went down on the ground screaming and pulling up fistfuls of grass by the roots, as though all nature was at fault. I may be less than sympathetic as (after ascertaining whether or not true physical pain is involved or not) I try not to laugh about it. I have just never seen someone go from zero to furious in .3 seconds like he does. It's shocking and funny all at once. A part of me is frustrated for him that he can't figure out what to do with all that rage, and then I know that it's a lack of patience with the perceived faults of the people, animals, and inanimate objects around him that drive him to the brink of complete mania. It's basically hereditary.
His tornadoes blow over just as quickly (if not moreso) as they arrived. Shortly after his fight with the pine branch, he decided he wanted a piece of the wretched Halloween candy that sits in a bowl atop our refrigerator. I told him that after lunch - if he ate all of his sandwich and fruit he could have a piece of candy. He said, "I want lunch right now." As I was covered in pumpkin guts and in the middle of de-seeding, I said, "It's not quite time for lunch yet. We'll have it in a few minutes when I'm done with this." He disappeared into the house. About 10 minutes later, Austin came outside to report that Levi was eating a sandwich. I asked if Austin had made it, and he said, "No, I don't know how he got it." I have never seen Levi eat a sandwich that wasn't lovingly cut into dino-shapes or at least de-crusted by myself or an older sibling. However, he had apparently made himself his own peanut butter sandwich. Further evidence was apparent when we went to make more sandwiches and found the peanut buttery knife back in the silverware drawer with the other butter knives. In the process of his impatience-induced independence, by the way, he completely forgot about the candy he had earned by eating his sandwich "all gone". We were all proud of him.
My days are also filled with many opportunities to practice (or lose) patience. If someone wasn't dumping dog food into the dog's water, licking the glass coffee table, finding a water glass on the counter to spill on the school books, scribbling across someone else's school paper, coloring tile grout with a permanent marker, or bringing the outdoor cat indoors to suffocate it with a stack of pillows that is supposed to be "its house" - I would begin to wonder if I was in the right house. Today, Violet brought a woolly bear caterpillar into the house, unbeknownst to me, and set it on the tile floor in the laundry room. While I was rushing from one thing to another, I felt his bristles under my bare feet, followed by a squishy, moist feeling... looking down to find that the guts squished right out the end of wooly and through my bare toes. Ugh... "Don't touch it!" I shouted over my shoulder at the kids as I went to grab a tissue. Sadie held a squealing Violet back until I returned moments later with the clean-up tissue. Life is interesting, and I don't always control my emotions and act with as much patience as I would like. It becomes just raw energy, so much of the time. I use that as an excuse, but what about those times when I do have time to think it through?
I finished the volunteer training for Ogle County Hospice tonight. The graduation ceremony was bittersweet. I was a little sad to see it over, because it has been eye-opening, educational, and perspective-rich. I have learned that, with direct patient care, one's primary job is to listen. This is something I have been trying to practice away from training - at home, with friends, at church, etc., and I am way worse at it than I ever knew. I am a sentence/thought-finisher. I am a quick-thinker, and it leads to being a poor listener. I have answers formulated before the questions are finished. I think I know what another is thinking before they fully communicate, and this is bad for relationship building. It is bad for conversation in general. So... even when I do have time to think - without the pressures of the needs of the children pulling me in five, sweet, little different directions - I still am impatient with others. I don't value them enough to be a good listener - to wait for them to communicate.
That is the root, I think, of most of our impatience - at least in our home. It isn't the perceived deficiencies or exasperating behavior of others (as it sometimes seems) or even just annoyance or frustration at having to wait for someone or something - that throws us into a bout of impatience. It is love of self and putting that self-love as a priority over those around us. It is not only the devaluing of others - it's the promoting of self.
The truth is that I know I am definitely not the most special person I know. I'm not even close. So why do I act like I am? I am looking forward to practicing patience more and hoping that I can make that difficult jump from being patient with strangers (which somehow is often infinitely more easy for me) to being patient with those I live with every day.
Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12).
