Sampling Blogrolls

I'm sure I'm not the only person who does this.

I have my "Blogs I Read" and I check them regularly, but sometimes the blogs on my blogroll aren't updated as often as I check them, so I check out the blogrolls of my regulars and see what they are saying.

Sometimes I run into something I really identify with - since a lot of people I know have babies and/or little kids, a lot of people they know have babies and/or little kids. It's not surprising, yet it is gratifing to find they all are as amazed at ordinary achievements as I am...and that they are equally humbled by the awesome task of taking a tiny baby and leading him or her up to adulthood.

I ran across this particular quote yesterday - it's a dad commenting on his new baby:

Later we will teach him to say "Please" and "Thank you," to look both ways before crossing the street, to treat others with kindness, to be neither gullible nor incredulous, etc: the basic requirements of being a person. Also not optional for Sam, as our child, will be church, the Bible, and Jesus. (He can, and will, make up his own mind about them in due time. In the meantime we will, as my mom puts it, stack the deck.) In all these we will struggle, fail, regroup, and begin again; when and if we succeed, it will be in spite of ourselves.*

I was struck with teaching him "to be neither gullible nor incredulous" because that is such a fine line. And I suppose that since I have usually fallen in the gullible crowd, I always thought of being less trusting as more positive, but that is not always the case.

Anyway, being called gullible some time in the past, I began to think about Caleb, since he is making the transition from baby to child. (He's not sure which camp he wants to be included in for now.) Not unlike most toddlers, one of his funniest achievements presently is repeating things Rob and I say. And I know that kids say things they may not understand (i.e. repeat their parents) and that can be hurtful. I remember particularly one classmate telling me (not in a compliment) that I was "book-smart". Which I understood her to mean, I was not "street-smart" (which was certainly true!) and couldn't relate to my peers (which, in hindsight, I do not believe was true).

Now I realize that she probably felt hurt or jealous by my success in school, complained to her mother, and her mother, in comforting her, introduced the whole "book-smart" thing. Her mother probably never realized she'd go to school, repeat it all and hurt my feelings.

The funny thing is, I don't think I was all that "book-smart" either - school was just not that hard, not because I was smart, but because what I was good at was doing what was expected...and they really didn't expect that much of us!

I hope that someday when Caleb comes home from school, and he complains about some child who has bruised his ego, I can think of the other child and his or her feelings before I offer the judgement of my fierce mother-love!