Determination

Yesterday I was watching baby S2 while she was playing. She turned 4 months old today. She is now able to support her head, so she can sit in this saucer thing with toys all around it. She really wanted this bee that is soft, rattles and makes crinkle sounds. However, it is connected to the saucer and she has not figured out how to lean forward to get it into her mouth. She can grab it with her hands, then she pulls on it with her mouth wide open. She worked on it like this for about ten minutes. She would pull, then let go and stare at it. Then she would try again. Then she would stop, let go, take a deep breathe, stare some more, then try again. Sometimes instead of a breathe, she would scream. She kept trying and trying. She wasn't going to give up. Finally, she got frustrated, let go and started crying. Exhausted by it all, she fell asleep while sitting up in the seat. I was impressed by her determination. I know ten minutes doesn't seem like a long time as adults, but to a 4 month old, that is forever. I think we should all have that kind of determination. No matter what it is we are doing, we should try and try and try again. Every now and then we should stop, take a deep breathe or even scream, think about how to get what we want and then try and try and try again. And when we are done, if we don't get what we want, we should cry a little, then go to sleep after trying our best. Today she tried the same with a new toy. Sometimes we can't get what we want and just need to let go. But that doesn't mean we should give up entirely, the next day we should move on to the next thing we want and try and try and try again.