Creativity and Expression

Just a quick one today (maybe? don't I usually promise this and then fail big time?!!!), as I've got a couch full of folding to do and although I promised I'd get to this early, I have only just got here.

Today Alice reminded me of one of the most coolest and awesome-est things that babies start to do. They start to speak! Oh, the joy of being able to look in to her little eyes and know what the fuck she is talking about is immeasurable!!!! Sorry, I know I'm meant to be all patient, kind and noble-peace-prize-winning as a mother, but cheese'n'rice I love the relief of when I'm dealing with other humans that I can actually understand in a verbal way. She is a lefty, my girl, and it was only when her first word was "Draw" that I started to realise how much I see that little freakazoid wobbling about in her cloth nappy bearing a pencil in her hand on the search for paper (or a wall, or a toy, or sometimes her hand) and her next artistic high. She will drag - literally drag - her brother to the kids table and get him paper, and point to the pencils and crayons for him to get for them both and then she will sit and just draw. It's sooo cool.

Which brings me to the bigger one. Who I was NOT watching after school while he played in the school playground (which by the way, is awesome to the power of rad as far as even I'm concerned) with his friends. We do this every day or two, just when the kids are picked up we let them hang out and play for half hour or so, get their steam blown off and enjoy some time with their friends. And today it had finally stopped raining enough to let them really go nuts, gumboots on, soggy socks underneath and totally cover themselves in wet sand because heck, its the end of the week and who doesn't like to get stupid on the fun of a friday afternoon?!

So there I was, chatting to another mum when I hear "nnnnnaaaaaaaawwww, your son is so sweet" from said other mum, who's looking over my shoulder. And I look. Well, there he is, helping his little sister up from a tumble, standing her feet firmly on the ground and then he just hugged her tight, whispering some kind of sweetness in to her face with a smile and gave her a gentle smooch on the cheek. I could have fallen over. This must happen so much when I'm not looking I thought! He took on this caregiver role awhile ago, maybe a month. And I always thought it was just a casual hobby, but it was so obvious that he's been fostering these expressions of love for her more regularly than that. She showed no hesitation, no fear of the unknown because it was clear he'd done this enough before that she knew what was going to happen. I was so proud. And I continue to feel proud now, even though it's hours later and they're both sleeping peacefully.

So that's my thankfulness for today. That my daughter is learning to be creative with her little hands, and that my son is learning what expressions he has in his heart, and that showing love for others is an obvious natural extension of who he is.