Real life

Five Minute Friday Gypsy Mama

Start.

Real life.

These days, the minutes and hours that seem to pour past at an alarming rate, these are the moments that will flesh out their childhood.

The laughter, the tears, the hopes and disappointments will add up to someday either make great stories to tell their children or a terrific therapy bill.

But, for now?

For now these are real, live opportunities to love and be loved.
To build them up, inspire them, reach and hold their hearts and to teach their minds.
To introduce them to great stories and lovely afternoons spent on a picnic blanket outside.

Real, live opportunities to give them a concrete example of grace and patience and kindness so that they have a visual, tangible store room to pull from.

Real, live opportunities to allow them to cry for just a bit and for me to just be silent and to listen as they detail their disappointment or hurt.
Even if this situation won't matter a hill of beans in a few years, for now this is their reality and the hurt is real to them.

As they hand your their hopes and dreams scooped out through words, a real live opportunity to handle them with the utmost care and respect because someday they just might be a nurse, a world class spy, or a mommy.
To give them a sense of importance undergirded with humility, to pass on favorites stories, and share laughs over silly antics from not that long ago.

And a real, live opportunity for them to see failure, repentance, and apology in action. My kids get to see me fail, own up to my mistakes, ask for forgiveness and dust myself back off to try again every.single.day.

Real life.

Stop.