In Our Hands

I have been thinking a lot about children and bullying and school and the world and all that it is in our hands and all that is not. I have been thinking of the whirlwind of the mornings of the making of sandwiches and the hair brushing and the do this and don't do that of it all that needs to happen to get out of the door with a hope of being on time. The things that we can control and the things that we can't. The people we love that fill our days and the people that drain our energies. How we react and how we let go. How there is not enough recess and far too much testing. Teachers who can't wait to retire and those that you hope never will.

Maybe we just need to kick this old school. Maybe we need to get back to the basics. Talk less, listen more. Less excuses, more showing up. Less getting bogged down in reality, more room for dreaming. Maybe it all starts younger than we think, the being there and the having fun. No rushing to be older even when it is so so hard. 

I am not perfect. I think it is exhausting to even try to be. I mess up an endless number of times in a day. I am incapable of being punctual. I love wine. I check my phone more than any one person ever should. I wish we spent less time in the car and more time having dance parties. I wish I laughed more and nagged less. I long for more time with my kids and when I have more time, I sometimes feel overwhelmingly consumed by it all. In short, I am human. An honest one, but a bit of a hot mess all the while.

But on Friday I volunteered at my twins preschool and I remembered how beautiful it is to feel alive in a moment. A moment of play and imagination and joy and playdough and block building. How simple it truly can be and how much we can overcomplicate it. When I am there, present and awake with giggling four year olds, I can't help but to feel that no matter how many wrongs I have done, at least I've got  this right. 

Play. Build. Hold hands. Sing. Read. Paint. Listen. Laugh. And eat blueberries together. Repeat.

Children naturally absorb learning and acceptance. They may be young but they are old enough to love out loud. Until we teach them different, loving out loud is all that they know. They are the headlines of tomorrow. What the headline reads is all in our hands.

So maybe we just all need more of this:

And this:

 

With a side of this:

And instead of a future that looks like this:

Maybe it could even look like this:

I believe in this future. 

Let's put our hands together on this one...

xoxo

Katie

p.s. Thank you to the South County Preschool Co-op, a priceless school experience. Thank you for always getting it right.