I was sitting at the little craft table with Bug and Bean not too long ago. Bean is now an active, busy, and impulsive two year old boy. His body is just about always moving faster than his brain can keep up with. This makes for a bad combination when his sister is crafting diligently with her crayons.
My little speedy, excited boy grabbed about three or four of Bug’s crayons and broke all of them while attempting to color the entire page in under 3.4 seconds – reaching for Guinness Records, I’m sure. A bit too much passion, my sweet Bean. I fully expected Bug to immediately melt into a sad toddler puddle but, to my surprise, she looked at me and a startled Bean and says “Oops! You can’t color that hard. It’s okay, broken crayons can still color.” And she continued working on her 18-hued rainbow masterpiece.
Wow – Out of the mouth of babes.
As a pediatric occupational therapist, I have had the pleasure of witnessing some exciting developmental milestones. After months of tedious trials, tears, and exercise disguised as games, I’ve watched toddlers finally figure out how to roll their bodies over and young teens finally be able to brush their own hair. I’ve celebrated everything from first steps and first breaths without a vent to A/B Honor Roll and the social courage to have their first best friend. These milestones come so naturally for some, but can take months or even years of hard work for others.
On the flip side, I have also sat with heart-broken mothers and fathers emotionally processing devastating diagnoses. In those moments, grieving parents look at their loved and wanted babies feeling like they are ‘unwell’ or ‘broken’. My mission is to help parents see their kids they way I do – exceptional, individual, differently–abled. I hope parents see that their babies like my daughter saw her crayons in that moment. Still beautiful and capable. Noticeably different from the others in the crayon box but still each with their own hue unlike the other crayons there. And still very capable of making their own beautiful marks.
While this is a perfect analogy for the sweet little ones I have the joy of playing with everyday, I couldn’t help but take a little of this in as self-reflection as well.
We adults can be pretty hard on ourselves. How is your crayon box looking? Do you still use all the colors there? Do you even still have all of them? Or maybe you can identify as one of Bean’s broken crayons – do you have a few small chips or do you now have three different sizes of Lemon Sunrise Surprise? Maybe your social circle has it all wrong and you feel mislabeled – feeling little more Lilac Dream rather than just Pastel Purple. Or maybe you feel you have nothing left to hide because the paper label is just completely missing altogether.
As you read the sentiments here, I hope your are feeling generally whole. The last few years, and sometimes the demands of adulting, can really wear on a person. But there are more levels in this crayon analogy. When there are enough tiny broken pieces, they are easily gathered together into a heat-proof mold, and melted down into a new beautiful rainbow creation. The new product may not be purely labeled as “purple” or “orange.” Now it may represent “Hues of Blues” or “Green Gradient” or perhaps a more creative “Collection of Toddler’s Broken Pieces.”
We work to find our supports to build the best version of ourselves. For my little ones climbing big social-emotional or medical mountains, those supports may be immediately visible in the form of braces for legs or hands, fidgets to stay focused, or weighted blankets for calming. Their needs may span for a relatively short window of four to six months, others may continue to come play with me weekly for years. These amazing babies, children, and little fighters are collecting up more pieces and molding themselves into masterpieces. They make their marks, and they are beautiful.
I hope you, too, are able to embrace the broken parts of yourself as we complete this masterpiece together.
Cheers, Heather
Beautifully written Heather!! And my crayon box is quite full but misses my daily dose of my Heather crayon!!
Heather, I really enjoyed this post. Beautifully written and personally a joyful perspective on socio-emotional developmental struggles. It’s easy to be weighed down by a diagnosis, but to hear your thoughts illuminates the silver lining and forces the heart to embrace said struggle as a gift.