Here's Eli with his "tractor" on his back :-)
As Eli has been learning to dress himself, I have been been learning some important lessons about life. Like most kids, Eli often gets his shirt and/or his pants on backwards. Also, he doesn't really care about what day it is. On Valentine's Day, I tired to talk him into wearing a Valentine's T-shirt he randomly owns. I was like "yeah! he actually fits in it to wear it on the right day!" but He decided that he would rather wear a Christmas shirt :-).
But the main thing I've been learning is that close is sometimes good enough. I mean the Christmas shirt was red, so he still looked like he was wearing Valentine's Day stuff anyway, and in the end, the goal is to have him wearing clothes right? The most important thing is that Eli is learning to dress himself. He's learning how clothes work, that some keep you warmer than others. He's learning how things feel when you put them on different ways. Eli is creating his own style one day at a time.
I think sometimes we need to let ourselves know that we are still learning, and that the most important thing isn't that everything is done just "the right way." In many ways we are still learning just like Eli. Heavenly Father sent us to Earth to learn and grow, not to do everything right in one day. Maybe I'm still not a very good housekeeper but I'm learning, and in the end no one is in any danger of death upon entering my house, so maybe for now close is good enough. I'm still learning that somethings should be done in a certain order. Like, I need to clean the closets some before I will be able to organize things that need to be put away into them. In my current house, I need to do the dishes before I can do the laundry (draining issues). But the fact that I am trying, and that I am figuring out what techniques do and don't work for me is really the most important thing right now.
This goes for all sorts of things in our lives. Maybe I didn't know the perfect thing to tell a friend who was having a hard time, but the most important thing was that I tried and I did or said something. Or at least started with the thought to do it. And for now close is good enough. Close still helped.
Obviously, the goal is to move to be able to do things perfectly, but in God's eyes we are still children, just like Eli, and He doesn't expect us to do everything perfectly quickly, anymore than I expect that Eli will start being able to take care of his clothes starting tomorrow :-)
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