Perspective

 

Perspective

As a Mom, a past Preschool Teacher, and now a Grandma, children have always held a special place in my heart.  As a child, I felt pushed aside and ignored a bit as the youngest of five children.  I think that played a huge part in why my heart aches for kids. I was timid yet loud.

  I was often picked on for being the one that talked too much with nick names like "motor mouth" or I was hushed being told "you don't have to yell" in mid sentence as I was speaking, which often made me not want to talk at all.

Jim has a sister,Deb, she is in her mid sixties. She has had some trauma in her life, so she has never married, lives alone in a one bedroom apartment, and doesn't have a working television, by choice. She lives in solitude and is happy that way, or seems to be. Jim will often go visit her, and they play cards. He takes her once every few weeks to the laundry mat so she can do her wash, and the grocery store, but other than that, she just isn't a social person.

This past Sunday was Easter. We had of course, planned to have ham dinner and have our two adult children and their families over. We went to church, came home and Jim said he wanted to go see if his sister had been invited by any of his siblings to go to their family gatherings. 

She doesn't have a phone, so we have know way to get a hold of her unless we drive to her place.  So we drove across town to her apartment, knocked on the door, waited. Finally she opened her door and he asked if she had been invited out for the day.  She responded that she hadn't, and so he asked would she like to come with us to the farm for dinner and to see our grandchildren, as well as the others. She looked excited, went right in to wash her face and come with us.

We got to our place and it was quiet, just our two cats, us and her. But when the grand babies arrived, it got loud really fast. We have a room in our home that we happily made into the "toy" room as soon as we were told the first baby girl was expected. The girls, Harleigh, a little over 3 and a half years old and Charlotte is two years and four months old, have energy. They are the sweetest little girls you will ever meet, and whenever they arrive at the farm, they know that the world is their oyster. Not spoiled, but very much aware that they are special and allowed to rule the roost to some degree while at "Greema" and Papa's place. When they arrive, instantly it is all about them, everyone's attention is on them.

Easter Sunday was no exception. They came in dressed like little princesses, cute little dresses on, and before even saying hello, they ran to the toy room and within seconds it appeared a tornado had struck and the floor was covered in toys. It looked like a ball pit, with doll clothes and toys as the balls, like you couldn't see much of the carpet.

They were loud! They were Squealing! They had more energy than a million energy bunnies. They had just came from their Gigi and Papa's house, so the excitement of time spent over there, just continued to over flow out of them here. Sarah, their mama, always says that they aren't like most kids. Most kids have a change in their schedule, extra excitement, will crash from mental and emotional exhaustion. Not these two, they thrive on it. The more new exciting things, the more energized they get. 

So they played hard. They never stopped. At one point they were jumping on Papa's bed while Papa looked on, and Harleigh was singing, "One Little Harleigh Jumping on the Bed!" with so much enthusiasm, that all you heard Papa say was, "I thought it was monkeys?" It somehow  seems when you become grandparents, the word "No" or "stop that" have left your vocabulary and in its place is "you probably shouldn't do that" or "Oh, I thought it was monkeys in that song".

My point is that it is a wild time when our sweet babies are over, and we wouldn't want it any other way. But for Jim's sister, who sat quietly watching all this, we weren't sure what she was thinking. She always enjoys seeing the girls, and never forgets them, always sending candy home from his visits if it is near a holiday, always getting them Birthday gifts. She doesn't see them often, yet she has their photos up in her home and she loves them and it shows. But loving a child and having patience for a child are two different things. So we wondered if this visit, as they have grown so much since her last visit, might have been just too much for her. They had grown in stature and their voice range had reached a new peak.

They played, colored, ran, jumped, squealed, laughed, screamed, cried a few times with a few bumps or boo boos, ate their Mac and cheese and of course their big bunny cookie homemade by their Aunt Shayna, with the added sugar of the pretty blue frosting, they were the happiest children! 

After cleaning up from the meal, everyone was ready to head home from their long day. Every one with full bellies looking a bit tired.

Except the girls, they were still as wild as when they came in. While we gathered up their things so they could head home,  Deb just sat there smiling. Harleigh ran over and gave her an aggressive hug with a little bit of a jump to it, and then they headed out the driveway. 

Silence fell on the house. 

I looked over at Deb and said, "they sure have a lot of energy!" She continued to just smile. Jim said, "Whooh, they wear me out, how about you Deb?" and this is when we were hit with the truth. 

 Deb said, still smiling this huge grin, 

"They are kids, they are happy, and don't you remember being like that, we were like that!" 

She had earlier mentioned something to me during the crazy chaos, about memories at her Grandma's house. But Deb has suffered a few strokes, so she is hard to understand and in a loud house, sometimes, I don't truly understand what she is saying. This was one of those times, so I just smiled as I caught at least that this was all bringing back memories for her, and they were happy memories.

When the evening ended and Jim had taken Deb home, he returned and we sat down in the recline and we were talking about the day. 

We were talking about the energy in our home and how it seemed like we had a huge crowd, yet it was only eight of us. 

And we mentioned Deb's comment about the kids.

Imagine how beautiful life could be if we lived life with the energy, joy and happiness as our sweet grand babies bring to a room. 

In the Bible, Jesus said in Matthew 18:1-6, (ESV) At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" And calling to him a small child, he said, " Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven." He went on to say, "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

He went further and added, "Whoever received one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."

Children are important to Jesus. They enter our world with energy, excitement, joy.

 Let us all remember that when a child is acting like a child, let's not stifle them, but sit back and learn from them. 

Learn to find the energy, excitement and joy in life.

The next time you are around children that are being loud and crazy, don't tell them to stop, imagine yourself joining in. Imagine jumping up and down like Harleigh on that bed, bright eyed and smiling, filling the room with a giggle that can't be unheard! 

Without a care in the world about what anyone thinks of them. 

At our home, they are Free! Free to be just who God made them to be!

Joyful, Happy, Girls loving this life and every day God has given them!

Be Blessed,

The Happy Farmwife

P.S. We are having a slumber party with them this weekend.....It will be loud, it will probably be crazy chaos....but I will recognize that I am so blessed God gave us these two beautiful bundles of WILD Joy!!