It’s fascinating watching a young one grow. Every day there is a new thing to see, to discover, to *KNOW.* With so many things in his word to discover, why only look at the obvious? When walking with him in my arms, his hand will shoot out to grab anything that is within his reach. It may be mundane, but it still has something to teach him, and he has so much he wants to learn.

We lose this unbridled curiosity somewhere. We still want to learn, but we harness our interests and direct our focus. The mundane within our reach is no longer satisfying; we must reach for something spectacular. Something new. Something *interesting.*

This is not a bad thing. Dedicated people with focused curiosity is why billions of transistors can deliver my words to you at close to the speed of light. However, such focus provides a specific threat to our creativity as well. Creativity without enthusiasm can starve. If someone’s focused attention is not shared with others, it appears that they are grasping at something mundane just because it happens to be within their reach.

Now, back to Elias. As he grabs something, it’s on me to try and remember what he is learning, to try and see it as he does. It’s on me to share and nurture his curiosity. And really, he’s no different from anyone else in this regard. Nurturing curiosity does not become less important as we get older; it becomes more so. As we focus our curiosity, there are fewer people who share our focus. We need each other’s enthusiasm all the more.

I’ve been singing. A lot. I have gone through my most recent repertoire and had to keep going until I’ve found songs I have not thought about since high school. They are good songs. I had good taste even if I lacked the experience to appreciate them. Tonight, I give you the poetry of Pete Seeger:

Just when I thought all was lost…
you changed my mind.
You gave me hope, not just the old soft soap.
You showed that we could learn to share in time.
You and me and Rockefeller…
I’ll keep plugging on. Your face will shine… through all our tears.
And when we sing another little victory song,
precious friend, you WILL be there.
Singing in harmony, precious friend, you will be there.

Nothing teaches how to be frustrated at a situation without being frustrated at a person quite like being home with a sick kiddo. He’s swinging from happy to confused and upset with regular irregularity, and what “works” for him frequently changes today. That should be frustrating, but it’s not. There is a lot of patience that comes with knowing that he does not know himself. That patience would wear thin if I thought he could tell me but chose not to.

This is a patience we could use more in our adult lives. I think we assume too much knowledge in each other. When we wonder why others are not being constant, we do so assuming they know what’s going on. I suspect that that is frequently not a safe assumption.

Every animal learns the necessary survival skills first. A horse can run within hours of birth. An adder can bite. A human baby can ask for help. I think this is a lesson we forget as we get older.

Before a baby can understand what it needs, before it knows who it can trust, it cries out to the world that it needs something, from some trustworthy person nearby. Seeking help is the all-important first skill that we learn. We learn it, and then spend our entire adolescence trying to forget it. We try to forge out our own identity as someone competent, as defined by our own independence.

When we first moved into this house, Shannon asked me if we could put a door between the bedroom and the bathroom. I handed her a hammer, pointed to the wall, and said: “let’s find out!” As she opened the drywall, she found there had once been a door there. Putting the door back should be easy. That began what was our first project as homeowners, the upstairs bathroom remodel. It’s still going on. Several projects have come and gone, many of less importance, but that this one remains incomplete. I’ve been stubborn. I should have all the skills I need to finish. I shouldn’t need to ask for help, and so I didn’t.

Then came this boy. He asks for help unashamedly, and it takes a lot to help him: sleep, energy, time. All of it is given willingly, but it leaves little time to finish the bathroom. That bathroom must be whole before he becomes self-mobile. So, I asked for help.

And I’m very grateful to say that it came. Stuart with drywall and mudding, Renee with paint. Brian, for a week, with absolutely everything. Help came without reservation or judgment. After nine years of beating myself up for never getting it completed, for not having the skill set to do it all, the end is in sight. It turns out all I needed was to be willing to use that very first skill of all, that defining skill that is the most important for our survival. I needed to ask for help.