Children.

Children see so much more than what I think sometimes. I was in the kitchen doing the washing up and yes, I was crying. I’d had a memory of my dad that’d hit me a bit the evening before and I was thinking of it. Basically, I was falling asleep on the chair downstairs last night and I heard my dad’s voice like when I was a little kid and I needed to go up to bed. I heard him saying ‘Cathy, come on, come on Cathy, up to bed’ in a nice gentle voice. It was a memory I didn’t particularly remember until last night, then I did. So I was very grateful for the memory but it also made me very teary. Anyway, I was in the kitchen, washing up, crying, J (5 year old) was in the dining room with his little brother, they were both drawing. I heard his voice. ‘why are you crying mummy?’. I was honest, rather than saying I wasn’t. And that was that. But it hit me a bit that they know a lot more than we realise a lot of the time and hear more.

So again, in relation to children. As I mentioned in a previous post we’ve started going to a Catholic church. Prior to this we’ve been mainly Charismatic Evangelical with a hint of pentecostal :). So anyway, it’s a lot different to what we’re used to. Good, but different! It’s very quiet when you walk in, well in general really. So you walk in, get directed to your seat/pew and sit down, some people kneel. Anyway, J (again 5 year old) can manage to sit and be just about ok now, the youngest who is 3 has discovered his voice and looks around, beaming at everyone and a couple of weeks ago, had a melt down. So I did the walk of shame down the whole length of the church with him under my arm and out of the door. It was a lovely day thankfully and there were a few families outside because they couldn’t fit into the church due to the 50 person limit. It was hilarious, our youngest loves an audience and he got himself right in the middle looked round at them with a massive grin and turned round with his arms outstretched almost looking like he was taking a bow, grinning at them, they (in general) smiled back at him, but then wanted to listen so I took him for a walk.

It again reminded me of my dad’s funeral. He did exactly the same thing there, refused to keep quiet (he was less than 2 years old though), went to the front of the crematorium and stood there grinning at everyone. It was like oooh, an audience. It was cringeworthy and beautiful and hilarious all at the same time. I think my dad might have laughed. Kids certainly are well placed to teach us lessons about humility and minding what people think, amongst other things. God certainly knows what he’s doing when he gives them to us. It’s encouraging though, because J was like that and now he isn’t so much, so meh, it’ll settle. It must be nice to have next to no self consciousness and it doesn’t last long in terms of years. Keep going, keep instilling what you want and it’ll happen. At some point.

I also love kids artwork. Seeing how they draw things at certain ages, what they draw, how it looks. I think as well as being fun, it can also tell you a lot! I also like the way they just do it without worrying what it looks like. So I’ll leave you with a couple of drawings, our littlest has literally just started drawing faces, just this week. The eldest is drawing his dad a lot at the moment, and fruit!

Bye!

Cathy.