So I’m writing this and it’s nearly midnight. Jonah is showing no signs of being tired or remotely close to falling asleep. (More on that later)
Last week, Jonah’s teacher sent us a video of Jojo setting up a stack of dominos quite meticulously.
So, on a whim, we got him a set as a last-minute Christmas present.
Except the ones we got him aren’t meant to be set up in a row. They are made for the actual “game” of dominos. They have curved edges, differing widths, and no symmetry at all.
And Jonah thought to set them up like the ones at school. But these don’t “behave” like his dominos at school.
He could set up maybe four… five at a time before they would topple over, knocking all his hard work down.
He persisted for a good long time… he even asked for help.
But even as Daddy set them up, Jonah, not about to let his Dad do ALL the work, did his best to do his part…
… and the dominos fell. And yet still he tried again…
And still they continued to fall.
Jonah kept getting more and more frustrated… and the frustration turned to anxiety…and I could sense I would need to redirect him soon or he would have a meltdown.
I tried to redirect him, but the meltdown happened anyway. I ended up putting the dominos away, in a place he could not get them.
He screamed and cried and hit me over and over. It lasted about 20 minutes or so…
Finally he crawled into my lap, snuggled up and fell asleep.
It was 6:30pm… the worst possible time for a nap.
But a nap was preferable to the alternative.
So he slept away. I put him on the couch. He didn’t budge.
Thankfully, the nap only lasted an hour. Jonah ate some dinner, played with his other toys and carried on, refreshed. I call it “happy time on credit” (We will pay for that nap tonight. In spades).
But then, about 9pm, he found his dominos.
I hid them on a shelf so high, it’s even out of MY line of sight… but still he found them.
He took them back downstairs and started to play.
It was not long before the familiar wails of frustration began anew…
The screams got louder…
And with a fresh nap, Jonah was poised to just go ahead and have a meltdown straight through the night.
We are at the point in our parenting journey where we just sort of “hope for the best” but “expect the worst.”
I thought about just putting a pot of coffee on then and there.
But soon, the wailing subsided. And we could hear that Jonah had moved on to another toy.
Shortly after, we went to retrieve him for bedtime. As we were walking up the stairs, Jonah audibly said, “Mom. Look!”
It took Mama and me by complete surprise.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard Jonah spontaneously initiate a conversation (not specifically choreographed from his hard work) and Jonah has never EVER initiated a conversation by asking us to reference something else…
And when Mama asked, “what, Jojo?!” He pointed down the stairs, a satisfied smile on his face. Our hearts melted.
At the bottom of the stairs, right next to the couch, sat a perfectly aligned COMPLETE set of dominos. Jonah worked SO hard to set it up, he didn’t even want to knock them over to watch them fall.
He beamed with pride. We finished getting ready for bed…
…and here I sit still… recounting the day… recounting the victories we have seen today…
Even if he doesn’t fall asleep until 2am. Even if he doesn’t sleep at all…
I’ll still take it.
For that victory, I’ll take it.
Jonah persisted through adversity, asked for help when he needed it, didn’t give up when he STILL couldn’t do it, kept right on trying all by himself and ultimately accomplished that which he set out to do.
Through the trials, through the tears, through the tribulation…
YOU DID IT, JOJO!!
I love you, buddy.
I’m SO proud of you.
(Now go to sleep.)