One thing that is fascinating about having a toddler is watching her build and navigate things, as I have mentioned before. We love seeing Mabel's brain making decisions about how things should look and how to construct things just so. Also, we've been trying to figure out whether she is a leftie or rightie. While Mabel used to do everything with her right hand, lately she has been spooning her food with her left. J is a leftie, and I should have paid better attention in bio class when we did those Punnit or Punnet or Punit or whatever it is squares to figure out the dominance or recessiveness of a gene. I am pretty sure right- handedness is dominant, but I forget how to figure out the likelihood that Mabel is a rightie. It doesn't matter anyway-- it's fun to guess.
As we watch Mabel engineer various projects with her toys, I wonder if she will eventually inherit my mechanical skill-- which is really no skill at all. I get nervous about even the smallest put- this- together- task. It's pathetic, really.
Some say you just need patience to put things together, but I don't think that's all. I'm patient when I research, and when I read, or have to find some product online. Even when I am following driving directions or trying to find my way without them, I am patient. In fact, I am pretty good at negotiating my way around places I don't know. I have found various short- cuts in almost every neighborhood where I have lived because I enjoy doing so. The open road seems so different from the rug at home where I have 27 pieces of a bookcase staring at me glumly. Yup, being mechanical is a totally different story. I lack patience there, but I also lack ability. I truly think it's a DISability.
We have two car seats-- one for each car-- and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to set either one up or remove it. I take one look at that LATCH system in the car, and one look at the belts and tethers and the what- have - yous and I just give up. I don't even try. But I should learn. I am afraid of car seats and I am a mother. It's no good.
And that's just the issue-- the looking at the item initially. Upon first glance, J seems to already find assembling things intriguing and fun while I just get angry. He doesn't mind manuals (while I can't even follow the pictures, let alone the verbal descriptions of "attach piece one to insert 2 while holding cylinder 3 into disc 4.") But even better, he likes to put things together without the manuals-- and he checks after to make sure it's right. And it is. It seems so obvious when he expresses, "Well, this piece has to go there" but I would never make that same observation on my own.
As Mabel gets older, there are more and more things have require assembly. And even non- baby things need it too-- I bought a floor lamp today that has these shelves. It came in about 48 pieces; I opened the box, cringed, and put it to the side. Naturally, J will figure it out tonight in a jiffy.
And let me point out that I don't for a second believe this issue has anything at all to do with gender. My mom is a whiz with assembly-- and she loves it, to boot. She put together more than a few Ikea gems for me when I was living on my own-- no easy task if you've seen an Ikea manual. She has her own tools and a drill and gets right up there to install brackets and curtain rods and what not-- I have to invite her over and bribe her with lunch when I need that stuff done and I don't want to bug J yet again.
So, will Mabel be like her dad and Nana, or like her sad- sack Mom who is mechanically disinclined? So far she seems into the whole mechanical process, but give her one day down the road where a Barbie leg falls off and she has to fit it back into the pelvis. I hope she does better than I.
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