Focus

Nolan has made so much progress since he was a little guy. Just the other night he asked to read to me (which he never does), and I sat down to listen. As he read in his robot monotone voice, my eyes welled with tears. I didn't focus on the fact that he is way behind his peers. Nor did I think about the ever widening gap between him and his friends. I focused on the fact that he was READING.......to me. If I let myself dwell on the "what ifs" and the "if onlys" and the "whys" all the time, I would fret with worry and feel discouraged. Instead I'm going to focus on right now and how far he has come and all of the obstacles he's worked through. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm choosing to direct my focus. As a runner, when I run a longer race, I guess I take a similar approach. I try not to focus on how many more miles I have left, but how many I've already accomplished. Nolan has a long race ahead of him, but I'm going to focus on the miles he's already conquered.

Humbled

"It's so easy being good!", Alaina declared about 2 weeks after school started. She hadn't had to pull a color yet and still hasn't since. But I quickly deflated her head a little and gave her some words of caution, "Be careful, because one day you might be talking to a friend without thinking while your teacher is teaching and she might ask you to pull a color." One of my goals as a mother is to make sure my kids are humble. As special as I think my kiddos are, they will not be under the false notion that they can do no wrong or that they know everything. We all fall short of being perfect. The sooner we realize that, the better off we are. I am proud of Alaina for being an obedient student and like the fact that she is excited about being "good". But as I work on being a more humble person, I will be helping my children be more humble too.