Yesterday I experienced the greatest paradox in food ever: cotton candy grapes. I know! My daughter had told me about them months ago, but it wasn’t till yesterday that I was lucky enough to be there before they were gone. They looked like regular green grapes; I was skeptical. Then I put one in my mouth. How could this be? The taste of candy in a healthy treat?! I found myself visiting the refrigerator several times throughout the rest of the day, just to see if the cotton candy taste was still there, or if maybe it was just the power of suggestion. I was never disappointed!
I enjoyed a plethora of little blessings yesterday. It was foggy as I drove to Oklahoma City, and I felt like I was traveling in my own little cocoon. It was so cool! Because it is now fall, I made a stop by Bath and Bodyworks to buy fall-flavored soaps… and they were on sale! No fall shopping trip is complete without visiting Williams and Sonoma to buy caramel apple pumpkin butter, but yesterday I found its companion: apple cinnamon butter. Yum!! Both Oklahoma football teams won in really good games, and I got a lot of my homework done, preventing a late Sunday night bedtime. I even found a blessing in the much-overdue cleaning of the pool: a new skimmer basket with a handle! Anyone who has ever stuck his hand down into an overfull skimmer basket to try to find that little bar handle across the top knows how wonderful the idea of a handle is.
I have been accused of being hopelessly optimistic, but I think my happiness comes because I notice all the little blessings with which God has peppered my days. There is no tree or mountain that I do not find amazingly beautiful. I think that’s why, in all eleven of the houses in which I’ve lived (ahh, military life!), there has always been a tree or a mountain view out of at least one of my windows. When blessings are seen in the tastes and the sounds and the visions of the world around us, it’s easy to be optimistic.
Those with gifted kids know that they tend to be worriers and head toward cynicism in their early teens. Getting them to see the silver lining takes time and repetition. When your child points out what could go wrong, acknowledge and then point out what could go right. If he vents about how bad an experience was, listen and then help him find something good in the experience. Because gifted are prone to depression, it is extremely important that we teach them how to see the good.
Yes, some things about life are worse than ever…
but some things are just as beautiful as ever, if not more, and I’m enjoying them more than ever!
-Michelle