from flickr user zoghal's stream under cc usage

Now there’s a phrase with many meanings – The Big Push. Many mothers think about the birth of their babies when they are confronted with these words. Little H, however, stubbornly arrived via c-section, so that’s not the case for me.

Today, I am speaking about an incident involving my dear daughter instead. We were at a local childrens boutique. She was excited with the bright colors and the toys and all the stuff she wanted to check out. She started chanting “down, down, down”, making it known to me that she wanted to be released from my arms to check out the scene. I put her down. “Stay close to mommy,” I said.

She started tiptoeing away -knowing she wasn’t supposed to leave my side and out of nowhere, a little boy appears. He was about her size, maybe a bit smaller. Little H approached him to say hi. He pushed her. Hard. I was amazed she managed to stay upright but she did. Her face wore an expression of embarrassment, upset, disgust and surprise all at once. She didn’t cry. She didn’t know how to react. Nobody has ever physically assaulted her before (besides the cat) and I could see in her eyes that she was very confused as to how or why this happened. Slowly, she made her way back to me and I picked her up.

I began speaking to her, although she wouldn’t look me in the eye – it was like she was ashamed of what had happened and was wondering if I would be mad at her. I asked her if she was ok, if she was sad. I told her that pushing isn’t nice and although it didn’t hurt to be pushed it maybe hurts our feelings.

Finally, she turned towards me. I hugged her and asked her if she wanted to shop for some clothes and she said “yes.”

Later on that day, as I told her dad what happened in the store, she was ready to talk more about it – as much as a 22 month old can anyway. She grabbed her tummy and looked at me. She said “Baby push!”

“Did the baby push you?” I asked her. “Yeah!” she said with a fake pout on. Then she made me kiss her tummy better.

The whole incident got me to thinking about how there are many kinds of pushes in life. There are pushes aside and pushes down. There are pushes through and pushes away and pushes up. There will always be people waiting around corners to push us. Those pushes will surprise us and upset us but we need to focus instead on how we can push ourselves. Because even those who push us with love, to support us and bring us up, don’t really know where we should be going. When we push ourselves, we can end up somewhere we want to be.

In terms of creativity, it’s easy to find excuses – I’m too tired. I’m not inspired. I’m too busy with other things. Remember to push those thoughts away and spend time on what is truly important to you. Because, washing toilets can wait and it’s ok if the laundry sits folded in the basket for one more night. When you look back on your life you aren’t going to think – I gave up my creativity but the toilet was always sparkling so I’m happy with that decision. Are you?  The thing is, it often isn’t a conscious decision at all.  Creative activities  tend to just drop off slowly but surely as other things in life take over.  Don’t let that happen.   Push yourself.

Related posts:

1. Guest posting
2. How far can I push it before my brain asplodes?
3. Monday’s Muse – the Blog Meme for Creative Moms