Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Gifts


The presents are unwrapped, the turkey is eaten and we're trying to avoid polishing up the last of the trifles and puddings.
My Sprocket has already destroyed two bigger, bigger robots with buttons. My Poppet is trotting around with a troop of pink dolls. It's been wonderful to see my little ones delight and awe, to watch their awareness of Christmas develop.
But now as we pack away the Advent calendar and put away the Christmas stories, I'm starting to reflect on the gifts I truly want to give my children.
If I could give them any gifts I could, I would give them...

Loving hearts
Active, curious, reflective minds
Generous, creative, grateful, resilient and joyous spirits

And the thing is, they already have most of those things - although we're still working on resilience and reflectiveness. But as a parent the responsibility to strengthen the traits which will bring my little ones happiness and check the traits that will bring them misery, is so great.
Sharing, helping those less fortunate, tolerance, being thankful for the glorious bounty around, accepting we can't always have what we want, gratitude for what we have, facing misfortune with fortitude, living in the moment, forgiveness ... they're things I still struggle with as an adult.
It seems such a big task to instil these things in two small people. Especially when their favourite word at the moment seems to be 'mine'.
My Beloved and I plan to sit down soon and discuss how we can best plan for the coming year to help our children grow. To help us all grow. Last year we let a lot of things slide. Routines disappeared and we were left with a chaos not good for the children or us. A lot of things got lost in the rush.
We're still discussing ideas.
I'm hoping if we keep the most important things - love and joy and grace - in our hearts we'll come up with a game plan.

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