Let's Look It Up....Together

I haven't been posting much lately and that's because the girls are still trying to kick this cold that they've had for a month. I think the Mermaid is finally over it completely and the Guppy is doing better as well, today is the first day in a while that I have been able to put her down without her crying.

I was thinking this morning about the meme I did and how I answered that the most fun job I had was working at my University's library. I would work the night shift with my friend and our supervisor, whose name was Julio.

Julio grew up in Puerto Rico and was raised by his mother. He is one of the most open-minded and kind man I've ever known. He is also extremely smart. Julio knew the answer to almost any question we would ask him...our favorite game to kill the time was to try to stump him with a question. In the rare times when he didn't know the answer he would answer, "Well I don't know...let's look it up together" and we would.

I once asked Julio how he came to know so much information and he attributed his knowledge to his mother. See, even though his mother was busy raising him and his siblings by herself, she always took the time to help them learn. If they had a question that she did not know the answer to, she would stop what she was doing, and say, "I don't know, let's look it up together" and they would. She encouraged them to read everything they could get their hands on and took them to the library frequently. I could tell Julio cared for his mother very much and that she had a profound influence on him, and I swore that I would strive for the same relationship with my children.

All to often, as mothers, I think that at times we may be too busy to encourage our children's curiosity and desire to learn new things. Many times I hear mothers making up answers to questions that their children ask simply because they don't know themselves and are too busy to find out. I don't think that there really is anything wrong with that, and I do realize that some questions that children ask have answers that are too complicated for them. However, thanks to Julio, I have seen the results that can happen if a mother actually does take the time to help the child learn how to find the answers to their questions and learn. Now that the Mermaid is getting closer to school age and now that we have actually started some homeschooling, I resolve to try my hardest to take time to answer her questions as honestly as I can.

After graduation, I went back to the library to talk to say hi to Julio when I was in the area. I found out that his mother had fallen ill and he had flown back to Puerto Rico to be with her. I never knew what happened to him after that, but I know that whenever either of my girls will ask me a question and I don't know the answer, I will think of him and his mother and if I can, I will answer with "Let's look it up together."

Let's Look It Up....Together