Keeping an eye on the beauty

So this week I have generally been seriously grumpy – especially with the children. It has not been my finest week as a mum, in fact, far from it. I have snapped, shouted, lost my temper, been impatient and generally lost my perspective.

And I was thinking today to myself, where is the beauty in this prolonged state of grumpiness? That’s that I’m trying to have as my focus, so it must be here somewhere. But could I find it? No. That is until I got pushed too far by Christopher, who is 2 years old and seriously into everything right now, including pots of cream and lipsticks and anything else he can get his hands on. Today he tipped my expensive facewash into the bath, wiped greasy lipsalve all over the walls and drew in biro all over the bathroom door. (He then snapped the lid off my printer before I could reach him and he smiled at me and said innocently, "oh, hi mummy, I'm just in here breaking your 'puter" - I mean, what am I supposed to say to that??!!) I am going to have to rearrange everything, as this has all been possible because he has developed SAS scaling, climbing and swiping skills all of a sudden.

So, I reached the end of my patience with him this evening and really raised my voice and let him know very firmly how unhappy I was with what he was doing. My tone was unreasonably harsh, considering that he is only 2 and is innocently exploring, but I just couldn’t help it. And he looked me straight in the eyes, said ‘OK’ quietly and then absolutely laughed his head off. I mean, really belly-laughed. And when I looked into his eyes all I saw was pure love – and an absolutely unshakeable sense of the hilarity of existence! And before I knew it we were both really laughing together – a real, proper laugh that transcended me being a mum and him being my son. It was as if he took me behind the scenes for a moment to remind me how unreal this all is and we stood there for a while, watching ourselves.

So there I was, looking for the beauty and what happened was, I realized that Christopher was doing that for me – and he was seeing me as absolutely beautiful and perfect just when I needed it most. How beautiful is that?! And so helpful for me to remember that it's not my job alone to look for the beauty - we are all doing it for each other all the time.

He has inspired me not only to write this blog but also to remember to see the beauty in others as much as I can. Thank you, Christopher, I adore you. May you never take me too seriously when I am in a grump. And may we continue to see each other's beauty and innocence always.