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The day has come where my daughter can now read, place and receive text messages! This has been coming for some time in bits and pieces and we are now here. I can send her texts from another room of the house about key communications and she gets them, reads them and responds accordingly. I must say that this is nice. Less talking is involved and more action. If you have kids then you know how nice this can be. It may sound obtuse, but I don't mean it in that way.
It's just a nice utility to have in the 21st. Century.
Onward and upward for developments in child rearing and raising. Booyah!
Shayla is now officially 7 years old. Wow. That time has sped by; it really has.
I am really glad at where we are in our relationship with each other. I have noticed that she is starting to form her own opinions about things in life. We are now having more in depth conversations about the way that life and our society works and functions. It's quite a thrill for me.
I can now take a breath as I realize the kind of person that I see my child becoming. What a kind soul she is. What a decent and gentle individual.
As parents, we fear that we will ruin this perfect creation that God has given us, that somehow in our imperfection that we will mar the core structure of this perfect being: that we will taint this gift of a perfect life. It is a real blessing to see that nature, that God, is a lot more resilient in His/Her designing of life than we are in our slips, falls and oscillations of human nature. Thank you God. I have heard it said that if your child knows that you love him or her without a doubt that this is the core to the foundation of a 'successful' life for your children. I have to concur. I believe this is the ticket, no contest.
Giving and receiving love is what life is all about. Being a parent shows you what the jewels in this Crown called Life actually are. There is nothing more important than this. Do not let anyone tell you or convince you of anything else. This is it. It IS about Love coming and going, Giving and Receiving and nothing, I mean Nothing else.
Nurturing that loving relationship between your child and you is the most valuable thing that you can do with your time. The beauty of this action is the permeation of that love throughout your life. It will seep into other activities and other relationships without you 'trying' to make that happen. If there is this deep, true love then it will color the whole field of your life...and what better gift could you possibly give to your child than to fill their existence with loving energy, a special love of life that was birthed when they came into yours? They opened your eyes to a beauty, a specialness that only parenthood will show you. We, all of us parents, have this gift--this special view of life that only parenthood can bring.
As parents, we have a special opportunity to write our own chapter, our own piece in our own script and hand in the Akashic records of Love...and our child(ren) gave us the way in, the 'backstage' pass.
Our ongoing relationship with them writes the script and along the way we will grow, Grow, GROW.
What will we write? What will I write? What will you write in the Books of Love?
Most parents probably come to the deep realization that what their child is is, in large part, a mirror of who they as people actually are. I am naturally resistant to this, but I think that the truth has to be faced (at some point and better now than......later, right?) that our children only 'are' what they have learned to 'be'.
Yeah sure. Children are there own entities, that's for sure, but more than that even they are what they have learned--what they see in action.
Overall, I feel that this truth is not so much designed to make us feel bad about what we have become as much as it is to humble us in such a way that there is no escaping the fact: just because we are 20-40 years older does not mean that we have 'figured it all out'. It is designed to show us that the work never ends as long as we are living and breathing. We are beings that are in a constant state of evolutionary progress and flux. The fact is that this is true even if we have personally decided recently or long ago to hang up the gloves of change. It doesn't matter. Evolution, life, God--whatever you want to call that Universal Intelligence is still asking us for real time input and engagement.
We cannot be dis-engaged, unless we are no longer breathing. End of story.
Life is love. Life is change. Life is engagement. Life is now. Life is growing, adapting and changing based on what is asked of us. We cannot silence the question and nor would we want to if we realized in all of our wisdom what it would mean to do so.
We are alive and we are living and this entails putting ourselves at risk of being wrong, of being corrected. It demands vulnerability and susceptibility. It means that the armor of iron has no place and that vulnerability is our lifeline if we choose to be available, vibrant and alive. Really, what other viable choice could there be?
We get led away from this truth by the challenges that we face in life. Life can be hard and brash at times. Pain has taught us to protect ourselves and be ready to throw up the shields at the slightest wind of conflict. While this may be understandable, it isn't the most life-afirming response.
Children bring us back. They require the vulnerability that seems to be so easily oxidized by the harsh vapors of some of life's experiences. They require the tenderness, openness, availability and vulnerability that we all want and need. They bring us back to ourselves.
My daughter has been proactively learning how to use chopsticks. Here's some evidence of that: She thinks that she's not supposed to use her other hand if the noodles are like hanging out and everything. I told her not to worry about that so much--just get them in your stomach.
Success is more important than technique, as with many things in life. Just "Get 'er Done"!
