Perfection

A day in the life of Amber:

Oct. 26, Tues 2010

The day ended with me, here at the keyboard, wondering what to blog for the first time.

I asked myself: What really moved me today? What part of my day was most inspiring? What won’t I forget about today? Will people read it? I just decided to relax and write what came to mind first, so here it is.

One thing that I will not forget about today:

Just as I thought the sunset wouldn’t be making an appearance tonight, the tornado like weather disappeared and there was an incredible yellow glow that drenched the sky. It took my breath away.

Another thing that took my breath away, literally, was when my six year old son came home with a bad report from his teacher today. His two older sisters giggled as he got a ‘talking to’, because after all, he is the ‘Angel’ of the family, the ‘Baby’, Mommy’s Boy so they say.

Clearly my two daughters were both shocked and equally impressed that their baby brother could muster up some raucous for the teacher today, making them look ‘normal’. It made me mad he would misbehave in class, but made me laugh too that the girls got such a kick out of it. Depending on which perspective I saw it from, the girls thought this was comical, that Baby Boy got into trouble at school. From my perspective, it was infuriating. How could he go to school and not listen to the teacher?

I wonder what his perspective was?

If I had to guess, I’d say he thought like this: ‘Aww ma, I listen and learn every other day and get good grades, gimme a break’. But kids all too often wait for our cue to see how they should think and feel. So his reaction to my angry face and disappointed tone today was surely one that drove him to wish he was perfect.

It’s quite impossible and unfair for me to expect perfection out of him or anyone else for that matter.

So the most I can do is make a punishment fit for the crime and hope he learns a lesson. Tonight, it’s early to bed for him and no staying up a little past our bedtime to watch football games for a while.

We are all imperfect, growing and changing. There is never a day that we will be expected to get it all right. Our imperfections and weaknesses help us to feel humble and to ask for help. Our expectations to be perfect or expect perfection out of others haunts us and hurts us. We should celebrate our mistakes since we can always learn from them. He tried something today and he learned it wasn’t okay. I learned something  too. Make the punishment fit the crime, and it’s not the end of the world, Justice was served case closed.

 Amber