Missing Pieces & Complete Pictures

So last year I think it was, we got this little puzzle with Ninja’s school photos. It’s part of the photography company’s “fun pack” and while we’ve never used, or given away the puzzle, we’ve always bought it. There are other cool thinks we like, like key-chain photos and bookmarks.

Anyways, one day I was playing with the puzzle, and I took some pieces away. I left it on my desk and the NinjaBaby sees it and says “Hey, it’s me… But some of the pieces are missing” and I said “yeah, but that’s because you can have a few pieces missing, but still have a complete picture”…

That sums up raising our NinjaBaby to a T. We don’t know where all the pieces fit, and as he grows some of the missing ones may show up, or not, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a complete picture to work with.

We can already start to see his strengths and weaknesses, his interests and dislikes, and quite honestly, just how truly brilliant he is.

Just last night as we were talking with him, trying to get him to eat more fruit, A goes “Well you like Strawberry Smithies, that means you should like and eat Strawberries too” and so in the blink of an eye he turned it around on her with “Well you like Broccoli right?” to which A answered “Yes” and he relied “Well, would you want to eat a broccoli smoothie?” and he had her.

He seemed to understand the concept that you don’t have to like the primary to like the derivative or vise versa and that just floored me.

Also on our most recent trip to Atlantic City he explained to some complete strangers on boardwalk tram that “Africa, North America and all the continents used to be one big blob together, and that was when the Dinosaurs roamed the earth” and I exclaimed “Wow, my son knows Pangaea” and he interjected “Yeah, I knew it was called that too, I just didn’t say it”.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, you really don’t need to know all the pieces to know how great our son is. You don’t need to know all the pieces of anyone to still know them as a person. You don’t need to know why they need something a certain way, because if you care, you will just learn they do, and do it that way for them when you can.

That’s the way I’ve tried to live my whole life. If you want to tell me why, that’s good. I may even ask, but you don’t have to tell me. Because knowing how to fill the hole/need in your life doesn’t require me to know why that piece is missing.