The big moments

They won't fit anywhere on a resume or application, and there are no tangible souvenirs at the end of the day, but for my money, moments like those that happened in Edith's life this week are, in my mind, among the biggest in growing up. Other parents may agree.

1.

Monday morning Edith and I were walking down to school, when we passed one of the admissions directors. Edith was walking along head-in-the-sky telling me about a book, which the admissions director didn't realize, and as adults often do, she looked at Edith with a big smile, expecting a greeting.

"Edith," I said so she would notice the hovering adult, "are you going to say hi to Ms. M?"

All summer Edith looked daggers at adults who greeted her, moaned audibly when introduced to someone new, and began to wail when expected to make small-talk. All summer I would cringe at this behavior and admonish her, patiently and deliberately, about the importance of being polite even when you don't feel like it. It didn't seem to be going anywhere.

This time she drew herself out of her story, smiled shyly, waved awkwardly, and said "hello."

Later in the afternoon afternoon Edith was hanging around the edge of an after-school meeting, as she often is obliged to do. As the meeting broke up, I ran to catch an administrator to whom I wanted to speak briefly. Edith had seen me come out of the meeting and was pleased that it was over and that we would be headed home for a needed snack and down time. Then she saw me grab the administrator and began to scowl. She came running over, stormclouds in her eyes, and got into head-butting stance. "Mommy!" she wailed. "Aaaahhh!!!"

"Edith," I interrupted her, "I need just two more minutes."

She was unappeased and begin to flail her arms.

"Edith," I said, "have you met Dean L? Did you know she's in your family?"

[Editor's note: The entire school community, students and staff and faculty, are organized into "families," with one girl per grade 1-12 and a few adults assigned to each family. Once a month the families get together for multi-age activities. You stay in your assigned family your whole time here. Our families have just been assigned this year, and our first family gathering is later this week.]

Once again, Edith straightened up out of her tantrum posture. She smiled again, waved, and said "hi." She listened politely while Dean L talked to her about family gatherings and answered difficult adult small-talk questions as best she could.

Then I dared to mention again that I needed two more minutes with Dean L. Edith nodded politely at my colleague, scowled at me, and walked away.

If it's not yet a performance Miss Manners would feature, I can't tell you how huge a change this is on Edith's part--the decision to self-regulate and rein in her frustrations and also the effort to overcome her shyness and interact with strange grownups.

Later I was complimenting her on the change while explaining to Tom what I had seen, and Edith nodded and agreed that she had decided to be polite to semi-stranger adults. She clarified that parents, however, are still targets in the face of frustration, hunger, and fatigue.

I'll take it.

***

2.

Edith had a book report returned because, her teacher said, it was short on details and didn't make clear what the story was about. She asked Edith to redo it. Edith wasn't sure what was required. Once upon a time she would have crumpled up the paper, yelled in frustration and anxiety and embarrassment at having gotten it wrong, and screamed that she couldn't do it. This time she did none of that.

I suggested that she should pretend she had never read the book. I would read her book report aloud to her, and she should stop me when she, the person unfamiliar with the book, didn't understand what was going on.

Edith entered the role-play and immediately identified the jumps in logic.

What did she want to do? I asked. I thought about the considerable effort it takes a second grader to write a book report. I suggested she might write sentences at the bottom of the page that would fill the gaps in logic, then draw arrows from the sentences to the places they ought to go in the report.

Edith didn't respond. Then she said, "If I'm going to do it, it should be a good book report." Then she got out a big eraser and began to erase several lines at a time, starting about a quarter of the way into the book report. She'd erase a few lines, write something completely new, stop, read, then erase a few more lines of the first draft. She made some grammar mistakes in the new version, and she went back and erased those to correct them.

The new report was much more coherent.

She was falling asleep before she quite got to the end. She asked if she could go to bed and continue tomorrow. She didn't cry that it was too long and hard. She put the book report in the center of her desk, got on her nightshirt, and went to sleep.

I am amazed and proud.

Somehow, somewhere, the most important decisions she can make about who she wants to be are taking shape. For seven years we've wished some of these things for her. We always knew she could learn patience, manners, and resilience. Yet it feels like joyous tidings, worth singing and dancing, when it actually occurs.

***

3.

Finally, learning of the kind people are more likely to recognize and praise. Want to learn to count from one to seven in Mandarin? I thought you did: