We trailed into a country church twenty seconds before it started; the only seats left were the front row. Organ pipes sweet as my little blond six-year old rested her elbow on my knee and smiled at me with hazel-ish green eyes. Am I dreaming it?
Trying to be positive is already giving me even more loving feelings toward my cuties, and vice-versa.
(
This talk is all about the fact that we often feel the way we talk, making negative feelings even more negative. Also read on Happiness Project website that venting anger doesn't help; it hurts--
here (#4). I need to remember to talk the way I want to feel [from 'act the way I want to feel' --
the Happiness Project]. I've also noticed my kiddos talking more positively toward me and each other as I've tried to be more positive.)
Unobstructed view of a cute 16-ish boy who joked he was asked to talk about "dead people." Made me think of my beloved grandmas, one of whom who raised eleven children. What a great example of positivity she was; in her life history, she recounted the perils of raising such a large brood-- from escaped snakes to stitches to a near-hanging (my father, perched on his tricycle, hanging from a rope and found just in time) to a young daughter who fell on the floor at dinner crying "oh my heart! oh my heart!" Instead of complaining about these troubles, she would reinforce the value of each unique child-- "we were glad she survived that. We needed and loved our _______ [child's name]." (said at least once about each child) She focused on how proud she was of each of them and their indispensability to the family.
What makes her story even more impressive was the fact that theirs was a combined family. She lost her first husband in the war; he lost his wife to cancer. They started their life together with six children. They decided from the get-go that the children were theirs-- no step anything or half anything (she said-- "who's ever heard of half a person?"). When asked by acquaintances whose children were whose, she would say "they are
ours." When they would persist, so would she. (What guts! I couldn't do that) They even moved to give their family a fresh start in a new place so they could avoid those kind of questions. She treated my grandfather's children as her own and vice-versa. To this day, his oldest son visits her nearly every day and calls her "mother." Until I was an adult, I always thought of all my aunts and uncles as my aunts and uncles, no distinctions. They were a family.
Things I'm trying to remember:
no complaining (especially in front of the child)-- since it rarely does any good, no comparing my children, keep my mouth shut even when well-meaning people want information or comment on something my child is or does...think/talk well about myself, too.
