building a stegosaurus and what i ubderstand from this as a living fossil

we got this construction toy for sophia. a set of tubes and nodes, that you put together. the tubes are bendable, but rigid enough to build things.

there are no plans, there are no blueprints. just a picture of a buy who's supposedly made a stegosaurus. the saurid is taller by far than the boy. but i let my suspicion that he got help fall. let it be true.

my girl does not want to do the work herself if daddy is around. and so im enlisted in the project. by enlisted, that is to say that the task falls primarily on me. she stands and hands me the sticks, with her contribution being that the small, plastic node piece, she puts on one one end of the tube, to make the work faster. after a while, i see she loses interest and goes to make plastic sandwiches for the monkeys and bears.

i ask her if she wants to keep going with the project and she says yes. and so, i continue to plod along by myself, there were cutbacks in the construction staff, but we'll try to make the deadline. i call her up when the legs are done, she cones looks and goes, then when the body is conplete,...by the time 'we' finish the head, which stands much taller than her, and im holing is very cool to see, she doesnt bother. the toy nation is occupied with other issues.

its then that i realize that i was building this thing for me. much, much too late.

she does not care any more.

i worry constantly about being a parent. i know of the loose encironment i developed in. it had benefits, but also many many faults. i have no self control, no discipline, and very little in the way of acheivment. i see the little monsters i teach are even more brattish. clearly, discipkine is not an act of hate, but an act of love. to mold the clay is nobler than to let it just take the imprint of the gaps between the floortiles. but i know that i am already not molding as much as i could. there is just not enougg time. and tbe time i get with her, i spoil and cuddle. i just cant do otherwise.

and yet..

later this evenibg, she stole an old summer dress from the closet. at first i tried to tell her to not make a mess, but then she started doing the buttons. it was hard for her, with her small fingers, to push the thing through the eyelet. but my girl didnt give up, and in the end was wearing the ridiculous steawberry dress around, to show off to the menagerie. and so she acheived something i struggle with on her own.