Running Stitch

At the end of they day or week it is in my children that I find the most inspiration. I know, I know how cliche. And yet true. Each morning the inspire me to get up and face the day (through whatever means they have possible…like holding my eyelids open and yelling WAKE UP THE MAMA..YES!!). Ahem.

It’s hard to pinpoint what it is exactly that inspires me.

It maybe in the way they inspire me to set boundaries, or set ground rules. Or in the way they inspire me to just set. As in let’s just stay home today and see how the day goes.

My oldest son (age 4) inspires me with the way he takes an idea and runs with it. Last week it was all kites, all the time. How to make kites, how to fly kites “let’s go to the bike trail and fly my kite again!”

And the way he is turning into a little boy. He wore his snail pants to the dentist last week where he informed the hygienist that snail are not slugs, and that thrush birds eat snails. Which is something he got out of the book Are you a snail? (excellent) that we checked out fro the library a few weeks ago. And he remembers that!

This week it was boats, making boats, floating boats down the creek with dad. Talking about boats, talking about boats, TALKING ABOUT BOATS!

Today has been one of those days that has slipped slowly through my fingers. Slow in that it seems to be a lazy sunny day, slipped in that it is mid afternoon and I have not ‘accomplished’ anything much.

Except that we spent morning with friends. A surprise visit. And as the mama’s gabbed over tea I watched my son in his ‘kitchen’ passing out ‘cookies’.

“Careful,” he said, “they are very hot.” And I was melted on the inside at what a wonderful host he was and how thoughtful. And I had that moment of motherly smugness that said “look what I did”.

This is turning into a book report on how much I like my kids, and that is not my point. Instead I want to point out to you, to myself or to whoever that each day my kids Inspire me to be a better person. The inspire me to be the type of hostess that offers cookies to her guest so that my sons will learn the social niceties of making someone else feel welcome.

But that really isn’t it either.

My children inspire me to be a better person. The person I want them to remember me being. The one that loves them, and encourages them to be better people. They help me to see the world through their eyes.

Eyes that see new and exciting things everyday in a blade of grass, piece of fabric, a wooden toy or a new job.

I’m looking forward to my new role as WAHM and it came to me today that without my children I may still be working at a job I hated. Not inspired to find something new. Something that fits my lifestyle. Something that came at the right moment.

They have inspired changes in who I am and what I want from this life, for me, and for them.

Each of our days is a slow motion blur of growing and learning and discovering together.

And I realize that it is almost impossible to put my finger on what it is about that that inspires me. I can only tell you that it does, and they do.