It's All in the View

Caught a full rainbow this morning after the rains; when Ruby came outside to see it, she explained to me how a rainbow is made visible, and that Roy G. Biv is an easy way to memorize the colors. Then, looking at the flood in our front yard, she explained the water cycle to me. This was all before breakfast.

An hour later, we were warming up for the day (a little stretching, a little joint compression game, a little sensory work to music and dancing around), and we were kicking as we danced. Ruby, who shares my (once) super-flexible genetics, said, "Look how high I can kick!"

She proceeded to kick her right leg with such force and agility that she kicked herself in the face, knocked her glasses off and fell over. We all laughed. Hard.

The more I press into my children, spending time with them, looking them in the eyes and really listening to only them when they talk, looking at them when I talk to them...the more I spend true quality time with them, the better our relationships become. And the better our relationships become, the more time I want to spend with them.

Please understand: we are not perfect. Even this morning, between our sweet moments, we had more than one tantrum per child, a nasty argument between them, and it is still quite possible that I will be disowned as their mother or uninvited to next year's birthday parties by the end of today. We haven't had electricity much of this week, and one of our four water tanks is leaking, causing us to run out of water every 2000 liters. We just got done having a huge conversation about how we all make mistakes, and how we must learn from them and keep living life.

Even with all the shortcomings of our family and life situation, we can choose to concentrate in the fun and beautiful moments, small as they may seem. Or, we can choose to live in conflict, chaos and fear. Which will you and I choose today?

It really is a lovely road.