Hocus focus
posted in Parenting |There are days in my job where the constant nibbling to death by ducks routine leaves my ability to focus shredded to tatters. First it’s push this thing out onto the website, then it’s figure out why the accountant is having that problem, then it’s chit-chatting with the boss about how to set up a virtual server for testing, then–whammo!–it’s adding someone to our maintenance management system, then it’s yet another thing…
Other days, however, fly by because I am so deeply focused on one thing that everything else fades away. Those are invariably satisfying days, because at the end, there’s a feeling of accomplishment. Things Get Done when you are that intent.
The dotter, being six years old, has the attention span of a six-year-old. Which is another way of saying, "the attention span of a gnat". She flits from this thing to that thing to the other, spinning around and chit-chatting as she goes. It makes sitting down with her to ensure her once-a-week homework is done a rather interesting experience. She skews the papers she is reading off to one side in a cockeyed manner that makes my I-like-straight-lines-intersecting-with-other-straight-lines soul cringe. She fidgets and squirms. She bounces on one foot, then swings around the chair holding one hand on the back, then crouches up on the seat, then slithers off, then squirms some more. She gets distracted by: the cat, the dawg, OmegaDad, a ribbon on the sofa across the room, a bird sitting on the bird feeder, a piece of her artwork sitting on the other side of the table, her snack, her toes, a song, the idea of K. coming over on Saturday, what book we’re going to read at bedtime, notes that are up on the refrigerator…You name it, she is distracted by it.
There are times when it’s very wearing.
We are trying to teach her the idea of "focus".
Hah.
The Karate Kid and Star Wars (the original), plus other movies, have been enlisted in this scheme. "See how Mr. Miyagi is having Daniel breathe in and breathe out? See how he’s doing only one thing at a time? That’s ‘focus’." "See how Luke is fighting with his lightsaber while his eyes are closed? He’s trying to do it by listening, and by using his mind. That’s ‘focus’." "See how Lexi is doing the same figure skating moves over and over again? She’s practicing hard, isn’t she? That takes ‘focus’."
There I am, being a suburban mommy, taking the dotter off to gymnastics class. Lately, I’ve been thinking, "Um…she seems kind of good at this stuff…(when she focuses)…" Then there’s A.’s mom (A. is a day older than the dotter, and was adopted from the same city in China), who has been saying to me, "My, OmegaDotter is certainly very graceful!" And S.’s mom, who has said to me, "She’s pretty good, isn’t she? How long has she been doing gymnastics? Really?! My, she’s quite a natural at it…"
I tend to dismiss all this, though, as the maunderings of an overly invested mommy of a late-in-life dotter.
At the same time, this is the dotter we all know and love. To wit: the girls are lining up at the white line to start a crabwalk across the gymnasium, and the dotter, rather than listening for the coach to tell them to go, has crabwalked out a few feet and stopped dead to watch the cheerleading team practice in the opposite corner of the gymnasium. Or there she is, on the balance beam, supposed to be traversing it backwards on tiptoes, making it halfway before getting distracted by me (oh! The guilt!) and crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue at me and giggling, and then losing her balance and falling off.
But when she focuses…oh, my. It really has struck me, like I say, that she seems pretty good at this stuff.
This week I had validation of that feeling. Her coach swung by after class to chat with me, highly recommended that she move up to the intermediate level for summer or fall classes, said she’s "doing fabulously", and–oh, by the way–gee, she focused so much better since her buddy A. wasn’t there this week.
Practice. She’ll get better at focusing with practice. Right? Because when she focuses, she does amazing things.
