
Grace has taught herself how to be a 3-D animator. She was in GATE classes in grade school, takes honor's classes in middle school, and we just got her progress report today: all A's. So, yes, she's a smart-patarty.
So, my question is, how is it that she rarely seems to learn from her mistakes. Grace is just about as clumsy as she is smart. When she was in second grade, I told her a would give her five bucks the day she could show me she had no bruises on her body (yes, she fell that much). I held that five-dollar bill for a good two years...that's over 700 days of my clutzy girl in bruises (I feel fortunate that no teacher had ever called CPS on me and my wife).
I know clumsiness is something that she will live with all her life. But, I would think that there would be ways for her to reduce the clumsy that is Grace. She sits on our stools at the counter and always rocks, which inevitably leads to a stool falling and pounding our hardwood floor.
"No more leaning in the chair," I have said 214 times. And, she whole-heartedly agrees, nods and promises. Next thing I hear while I'm in my bedroom, is wood hitting wood, followed by Grace's, "Sorry."
I am always exhaulting that everyone makes mistakes, but the wise ones learn from them, and avod repeating them. Yet, Grace is constantly doing exactly what she knows has caused her to fall, step on the dog, drop a glass, even though she's vowed she wouldn't. Just this week, she was using her laptop, and put it down on the sofa without looking where she placed it. I saw that it wasn't in a safe spot.
"Grace! Grace!" I called as she walked away from the machine. I began to slide from the sofa. Before she realized it, it banged against the wood floor. The screen looked like an electric, horizontal zebra pattern, and it began honking like an injured miniature goose. She had broken her laptop.
It was all I could do to keep from saying, "I've told you a thousand times to watch what you are doing." Didn't need to. She was devastated.
But, I would think that a person who continued to make the same mistakes, mistakes that affecting her negatively, probably wasn't the sharpest tack in the box. The thing is depending on the box, there's a good chance Grace is the sharpest tack.
I don't get it. Wouldn't her rerun of mistakes prove that her brain wasn't as engaged as one might think of a straight-A, honors student, who's run her own business for the last four years? Someone help me out here!
I guess it's partly our fault..Grace just has trouble living up to the name we gave her.
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