When Our Kids Are the Teacher

Have you found that learning always continues in one form or another throughout life?  How cool is it too that our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friend’s children teach us some pretty neat things too.

Part of the classroom of life involves determining what is truly important.   I get to choose what is important.  It is a fast paced world so keeping the “truly important” can be a challenge at times.  Once a month, I take a small chunk of time & set it aside to see if my train has derailed.  It is easy to have happen yet if we make course corrections along the way, the train does not get too far off the track. 

Now this may sound unusual, however my most introspective month is November during this chapter of my life.  It is the month that I intensely appreciate family, friends, home, community & life.  For me Diabetes Awareness month is a “more than” month.  It is about gratitude for the dear people most of all.  This November, I made the choice to plan sharing time with Dear Hearts.  You know what, there are so many Dear Hearts that it is great to know already that this sharing is going to go into December as well!  This month more than any other month, I made the decision to suggest specific dates to meet up to share time instead of “oh we should get together soon.”  The intention of getting together soon is genuine however sometimes the “soon” can turn into a very long time.  When I have asked myself over the years what is truly important, loved ones always top the list.  Love is an action though so it was very important to make sure that I show my Dear Hearts that they are treasured by sharing time together.  Time together is a precious gift & I do not ever want to regret missing an opportunity to tell “the bees” in my life that they mean the world to me. 

I have always been sentimental yet I have found that time & diabetes have intensified this.  To me being sentimental means sharing my heart & time.  November is also the month with Remembrance Day in it.  Every year, I am thankful to the soldiers who fought & fight still courageously.  I remember my grandpas throughout the year & November, I think of them with such a heart of thankfulness.  They built families & passed on a legacy of love.  I love sharing stories of both grandpas with our boys.  It is part of their story & through this, they can get to know their great grandpas too.  That is another truly important thing.  Through the stories of family & their legacies, I believe that our sons are learning so much right from their grandpas. 

My sons in turn teach me important lessons along the journey too.  Last March, Brian (our second born son), came home from school & announced in his matter of fact way that he had told his teacher that we are now “walkers”.  I had been in the habit of driving the boys to school in the morning for several years.  Mornings are hectic for most folks whether you are a parent or not.  The first thing that went through my brain was, “oh man, no way are we going to be able to walk in the mornings to school since it is already a struggle to get there on time when we drive.”  That frame of mind lasted 5 minutes.  After that, I reminded myself that I choose daily to think in “I can terms”.  The next thought was although it would mean getting up even earlier & changing the morning routine that Brian was onto something here.  The morning exercise would be a healthy choice for all of us & the time walking together would be a time where the boys could share stories & hand me oodles of acorns & arrive at school hopefully in a positive frame of mind to start their day.   Our dog thought it was a great idea too needless to say!    Now, she was getting an extra walk into the day as a bonus.  From a diabetes perspective, the extra exercise especially in the morning meant that I could take less insulin & the insulin that I did take was more “productive”. 

As an aside, a mentor once said to me that “it takes 21 days to form a new habit”.  Once we made the decision to commit to being “walkers”, I made sure that I reminded myself that I needed to give this new routine 21 days in a row.  Okay, the first 10 days were challenging however after that, it was a new, better habit & that was great news!

Thank goodness learning never stops & thank goodness for the wisdom of the lessons that the generations share. 

Blessings for a lifetime of learning from the Dear Hearts in your life too!

Smiles, Saundie J