"The Only Therapy I Need"

I feel like my last few posts have been a little down and mopey. I guess one can say I've been a little bummed for the past two weeks, especially during the Thanksgiving holiday. BUT heading back to school this week after a little break helped put things into perspective for me.

I have one child who is morbidly obese and my co-teacher and I try to get her moving as much as possible. Well, over the Thanksgiving break, the trees around our playground shed most (if not all) of their leaves. There were huge piles of leaves everywhere and most of my kids didn't really pay attention to them. Except for my chubby friend. She's usually in her own world and a little spacey to begin with so when I turned around and watched her flop her body onto the pile of leaves; it didn't surprise me (but it certainly made me laugh). I continued to watch her "play" in the leaves. She laid on her stomach for a while, then flipped on her side and laid there, posing if on a beach or something. I don't know who her audience was but I was dying with laughter. She piled little handfuls of leaves onto her legs and laughed at herself with so much satisfaction. I hadn't laughed like that in a while so I walked over and began to play in the leaves with her.

The next morning I ran into a co-worker of mine on my walk to work. She is a bit older than I and is always a cheery woman. She always says things like, "hey friend! How are you?" when she greets me. She's just so pleasant. Well anyway, we were talking about the little things our kids do or say that are funny (like maple syrup belly buttons or rolling in leaves or criticizing us for packing a sandwich yet again for lunch). When it came time for us to part ways she said, "I tell you what, I divorced my ex-husband 18 years ago and ya know, these babies were the only therapy I needed."

Her words have resonated with me over this week because she's right, she's absolutely right. When I am tired or bummed, these goofy kids have a way of lifting my spirits that very few others could do.

Yesterday, my little "Cowboy Tito" tried to fix my hair. He stole his baby sister's princess crown, put it in my hair and then proceeded to play with my hair; tangling it, yelling at me to sit still and to not talk (or he would mess up). It was really funny because I kept talking to try and figure out what he was doing and he kept throwing his arms down by his side, saying, "I can't work if you keep talking!" He then proceed to find little strips of blue ribbon and strategically place them in my hair. His seriousness and precision only made this encounter even more priceless.

These babies are the only therapy I need...instead of looking other places for joy, I need to refocus on the 15 treasures in front of me every day. They are all I need on a gloomy day and it's in sharing them and their stories that my gloominess disappears.