My children take a multi-vitamin every morning. For those of you who have not delved into the children's vitamin market recently, there is a plethora of options out there. Our favorites seem to be the gummy ones which come in a variety of characters and shapes -- Cars, Avengers, Frozen, Disney princesses, etc. Yes, the list goes on. As cute as all these gummies are, sometimes it is a bit of a challenge to distinguish what exactly that particular gummy is supposed to be. I mean, if I didn't know a particular gummy had come out of the Frozen bottle it could just as easily be Cinderella as Elsa or Anna or, do you suppose that's Olaf?
I have the same problem with toys. We have a whole drawer in the living room with puzzles. Grant you, these are the fairly simple Melissa and Doug variety. (Great puzzles, by the way. I highly recommend them.) Still, if you weren't aware of the fact that we have four different farm puzzles, it could be rather frustrating trying to figure out why the barking dog is not fitting in to the fuzzy puzzle spot. When you find that random puzzle piece laying around the house, it really helps the clean up process when you know from whence it came.
Isn't this so true of life?
Seeing as how it's Christmas Day, it is so much easier to have a little compassion, a little understanding for one's fellow man. It's a little bit easier to look beyond the things which irritate us and just love people for where they are. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to do this on a day-to-day basis. Most of the time it's much simpler to look at the cover and judge what we're seeing. Or perhaps take one single moment in an individual lifetime and define the rest of our relationship with an individual by that moment.
Probably sounds a little philosophical for an individual who writes most of her posts about dogs piddling on the carpet. The same individual who started out this post writing about gummy vitamins. Apparently even I become a little more introspective as the end of the year draws to a close. I wonder how I treat the people surrounding me. Especially those who I hold near and dear.
My husband mentioned the other day that our daughter is the Hex Girls of fashion. (A nickel is coming your way if you can put that one in context without googling it!) I can say without bias, she truly is. She's adorable. She can also be my most challenging child. I often ask myself if the cute exterior covers for the bad behavior or if I judge every moment based on some less than stellar moments in her life. I'm not trying to judge my darling daughter, but just to illustrate the point. How often do we see the melt down in the supermarket (I'm talking about mine, not hers) and think "what is wrong with that parent?". How often are we able to put it into context with the rest of their day? Or to think about what other stressors might be in their life? Or just try to put ourselves in someone else's shoes for a brief moment and think that perhaps we're not the only ones who have less than perfect happening in our lives.
Despite my whining to friends and family alike, I can often be that horrible person who is judging other people's way of dealing with life. Looking at things from my own limited little world versus the context of their existence. Being a person is hard work. Being a parent just throws more people in the mix. Again, to quote my husband ("the poet laureate of Dogwood Lane") "our lives are like a three-ringed circus with untrained animals". Perhaps, we're not the only ones.
Merry Christmas, folks.
