I'm a firm believer in the power of mindset so when Glennon Doyle Melton (a former coworker who has since gone on to write a New York Times bestseller and hugely popular blog) suggested that we use Lent to give up ingratitude I totally bought it. I have so much to be grateful for and it's worth my time to focus on it.
So, for today, I am so grateful for my daughters and their absolute love and adoration for books. As soon as we get in the car they are ready for me to turn on the CD (currently The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan, an Enola Holmes mystery by Nancy Springer). The older one was upset because she thought we would be eating dinner on the run tonight but we ate in the restaurant. She was upset because she had left her book in the car. The youngest couldn't wait to read me her new guided reading book (Tomie de Paola's The Cloud Book) because, as she said, "It's not really nonfiction. It's more like nonfiction and fiction together."
I'm also grateful for my amazing first grade team. One suggested we have a pajama day on Friday because she realized we haven't done a whole lot of things just for fun lately and we missed Dr. Seuss day to the snow this week. These teachers have high expectations for their students, give their all to help them meet those expectations, and see them as kiddos who should get time to be a kid.
I'm grateful for my folks too. My daughters checked their email this afternoon (something they clearly don't do too often) to find ecards for Valentine's Day from my folks (I'm guessing mostly from my mom). They called me over to share because they were so excited by them. My daughters spent so many years seeing my parents about once a week, on average. That will not be so true now but my parents are doing all they can to make up for that. They send postcards, facetime/skype, email, and call my girls.
I'm very, very lucky for so many different reasons.
Cross-posted from jenorr.com.
