A Name of Bronze

Posted by J on May 8, 2013 in J Posts | 3 comments

I seem to have lost clarity on an important parenting principle over the last few years. It came back to me this morning as I helped a preschooler work on a 25-piece puzzle.

The principle is this: it’s not about the puzzle.

My puzzle partner wasn’t likely going to finish the puzzle. And no matter how carefully I laid out pieces, she was likely to jostle a handful of nearby pieces as she tried to make the new pieces fit.

What mattered, of course, was the time spent with my puzzle partner … how we leaned in to each other from our two miniature chairs … how she needed me to watch her every move … and how our puzzle moment was the most important thing in the world, even as preschool chaos swirled around us.

All of us have either been introduced or re-introduced to this principle over the last few days, as we’ve been living and helping out at the New Day Foster Home just outside Beijing:

S gave an around-and-around-and-around-and-around ride to a young boy in the back of a bike wagon. E taught a class of preschoolers an existential lesson on how to fold — and throw! — a paper airplane. H poured scoopful after scoopful of sand on a sandbox mountain with co-pourers who wouldn’t let him stop. And, for hours, W helped preside over a room full of turning and gurgling babies.

All of these children here are orphans with special needs … but to any child … even my own … I’m reminded that puzzle moments matter.

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We’re hopeful for a lifetime of puzzle moments for the baby boy pictured above. He’s the newest resident of New Day and, as tradition goes, he bears the English name given to him by the newest set of volunteers.

The Wildmans gave him the name “Daniel.” The name has a strong Biblical tradition … and it’s also the name of the main character in one of the first books we read as a family on this journey.

Daniel of “The Bronze Bow” seems to lose everything in his life that’s important to him … only to gain Everything in the end.