Children are awesome, aren't they? They are incredibly accepting (well, until a certain age, I think) and see the most miraculous creations of God. We as adults tend to be blinded by all the complexities of life. Children truly see people and objects as God sees them. Well, Benjamin does anyway. I love that kid. And not only because he's my child, but because he is my teacher. He has taught me so much more than I could ever teach him. Sure, I'm teaching him letters, numbers, and eventually how to tie his shoes, but he is teaching me acceptance, joyfulness, and creativity.
A sampling of my personal favorites this week:
Acceptance: A little boy lives across the street from us and we've actually never met, so I can't say for sure how old he is, but he looks around seven. He walks to school, and I'm assuming that he's walking over to the local elementary school. We see him quite frequently as he leaves around the same time that we start loading up the car for preschool. He is very polite and always says good morning and generally just looks like a good kid. He is quite short and is just a wee bit chubby around the middle. (which is precious to me) Benjamin gets in the car today and rubs his tummy and says, "I like it". "What do you like, Benjamin?" "That boy. I like his tummy." and then rubs his tummy again and smiles.
Joyfulness: We love to go for walks in the afternoon, usually sometime between 3 and 4:30. This is of course the time that I should be making dinner arrangements because it takes forever to cook when you have two small children, but whatever, it makes him happy and Ethan takes a little nap in the stroller and it makes me feel better, too. Benjamin has the same routine, the same route, and it gets quite boring for me sometimes, but I don't mind too much because while we're walking I'm envisioning wearing smaller pants this winter. So as we're coming around the corner of the loop, he shouts, "Look, a purple leaf! Mommy, it's a purple leaf!" Just the look in his eyes made me completely break down in tears. And it makes me cry a little just thinking about it again. He was so incredibly joyful for this purple leaf. One purple leaf. I can't wait until the whole tree turns.
Creativity: Ethan has had a runny nose off and on for weeks now, so I've had to suction his nose with one of those bulb things. No idea what they're actually called. Benjamin walks downstairs carrying the bulb and says, "paint, Mommy, we need paint." And I ask why and he says, "for this pumpkin" and he bends the long part of this suction thing down to look like a pumpkin stem and just laughs about it. He amuses me so much.
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