I’ve been a rainbows and unicorns kind of girl from birth. It’s in my genes to write poems, dance in the rain, and hear self soundtracks in my head. If I fight it, I get grumpy. If I fight it, I’m just not myself. Entering my “mid-thirties” has made this more clear to me than ever. I’ve been pondering a lot lately about everything I want to teach my kids. I’m not talking about specific academic goals. I’m talking philosophy. Life. Attitude. Pause. Think. Smile. Appreciate. Cup half full. See the bright side. I think one of the keys to happiness is to constantly look and love the little things. I want my kids to find a bread crumb trail of happiness all around them. How do I teach that?
One way, and maybe my favorite way, is to take pictures of those little things. Share them. Laugh about them. Get those pictures in the scrapbooks (not that I’m caught up on that). The random things. The details about parenting and childhood you’d likely forget unless you did. The little things. A visual love note to your children about honoring the little things. The moments. The little ones. The medium ones. The weird ones.
I won’t miss the actual shoes, just the miles and moments she walked in them.
30 itty bitty toes of warmth.
The donut shop shadow profiles that made us late to church.
Finding a sticker on the bottom of my cozy winter sock at the end of the day. I can’t say I haven’t wanted to squash Dora before;)
I love seeing what the drag-along-unsoccer middle kid does during double soccer Saturday. That’s her playing burrito blanket and laughing her guts out.
My favorite pictures aren’t the posed fancy ones. They are always the random unposed pictures of pause.
The world just spins faster once you have kids. Well, except the fussy days. Those go reallllly slow. So, in the very moments you pause, you may also want to click your camera.
-Shelisa
