April 6th Task #1, The trusty big blue truck helps me to pull Annette the schoolbus driver out of the road onto the Gunflint Trail….she just needed a little extra tug. Task #2: Denali and I returned home at a good clip because the truck was bottoming out in the snow. The plow hasn’t come through again yet. We’ve had somewhere between 1 and 2 feet in the last 36 hours…and it is still snowing.
Andy is returning from the Mpls sports show today—yesterday Denali and I practiced the tricky business of plowing over the spring muddiness without getting stuck. And I had a chance to spend some quality time shoveling with Gary the county plow driver—the mud in the turnaround by the Trading Post tried to swallow his monster wheels.
The truth is—as the kids first eagerly helped me blow snow and then played in it, I couldn’t help feeling a bit of that same November excitement –the world is covered in that clean white blanket. Is that instinct? This snow is the last thing I wanted to deal with, but it certainly is lovely. It is an honor to see the world from my kids’ perspective—a place to play–a place that always has a game hidden somewhere in it, if you look hard enough.
This last week I had a parenting experience, really a big slap on the forehead reminder. A huge job for us is to constantly share our positive perspective of our kids, with our kids. As adults, we realize that we are all full of dichotomies — the potential to be lazy/motivated, to be confident/ insecure, honest/ dishonest. Our kids are in the process of building their image of who they really are. It could be our most important challenge to remind them (and us!) of the best possible versions of themselves. With that vision in mind, maybe they will tend toward the choices that reflect that image. Or so we can hope! And sigh, and try again.
It really is a matter of perspective. It makes ALL the difference.