Designed To Learn...

I really started to struggle with Corazon not wanting to "do" much. She is my one who will draw into herself and "escape" reality by doing only what is comfortable to her. She has been sleeping lately. A lot. She will often sleep till noon or later. Then shortly after getting up, she will zone out in front of the computer until bedtime. If we go anywhere, the ipod and ear buds immediately come out. It has been irritating me, I won't lie. She has such a beautiful soul and so much to offer, but I feel like she is just biding her time, hoping she can go to school next year. Not making any effort to be part of her own life.

Tough.

So last night I reached out to my online (awesome) group of Christian radical unschoolers. I laid it all out there. My fears and my thoughts. Not easy to admit, but I knew I needed help with MY attitude. The gals there were helping me work through things, asking questions and talking. And then one posted this....

I just think how difficult it would be to assimilate all that she has to.  Displaced at three, years of neglect, then displaced again, but this time to a place with different smells, different sounds, different tastes, with different faces, and different voices.  Then add that she has not had the exposure to many things we take for granted for typical learning.  It would be hard for an adult to adjust.  She must feel like she is drowning or something at times. 

Even if she spent the next 5 years sitting in front of the tv most of the time, she would be pulling in sights and sounds and words and ideas and building upon other sights and sounds and words and ideas.  She would be learning.  But you know, she has other people around her who have interests and conversations and activities that she will be pulling information from as well.  Over time she will see and and hear things that will pique her interest and she will probably want to say something, do something, go some place and that will add to all the other stuff she has been building upon. 

We are designed to learn, and learn we will.  How we go about doing so will look a bit different than some, and hugely different than others.  It is all good.  Different is good.  She is just a tiny baby in her new home.  Soon she will be a toddler, and then an adolescent and soon she will be a young adult, and then continue to mature in her adulthood.  The age and stage may not match up to what might have been if she had been born into your family, or if she had joined you at age 3.  She will grow, she will mature, she will learn, she will stretch and become stronger, and braver, and more involved.

Wow.

Just wow. 

THAT was exactly what I needed to hear. EXACTLY.

I love this girl so very, very much.

And as a PS-after I got off FB and went back to just BE with my daughter, she pulled up Minecraft on the Kindle. Apparently she has been silently watching her brothers play. And she played. And played. And played. Then she asked me if she could help me bake for a party tonight. 

Touche. 

Thank-you God for helping us find a way that builds a safety net for my kids, even when I doubt. 

Especially when I doubt.