Leave Some Kisses...

I am always reminded of how children Dotty's age take what people say so literally and thus I have to be careful what I say around her. The other day I was giving Dotty tons of kisses on her cheeks and all over her face and I said, "I am getting ALL your kisses!" She stopped laughing and pulled away from me and very seriously said, "No Momma. You can't have all my kisses. I need to save some for Daddy." I thought that was very touching and sweet and it reminded me that Dotty listens to every thing I say and takes it to heart and even when I am joking with her she takes it as the gospel truth.

Just like any parent of a young child I have to watch what I say because little ears and little eyes are around and the while it may be easy to say "Do as I say not as I do" little ones tend to do as their parents do! Thus I have cleaned up my language tremendously...not to say that I cussed a lot before Dotty but even words like darn, dang, gosh, and crap are not good for little kids to say. I have also found that words like boobs, butt, poop, stupid, dumb, idiot, ugly, and so many more (while used properly are not deemed bad to adults) when a 2 year old says them can seem inappropriate (especially when she screams them out in the middle of a store). It is much nicer to say tush, poo-poo, or silly and little ones do not seem to get as much of a kick out of screaming the word tush and they do out of the word butt...or at least mine doesn't.

I have also begun to just watch what I say in general. Too often I make sarcastic and most of the time needless and useless remarks. As life has gone on I have become calloused by the world and have begun to focus more on the negative than the positive. I don't want Dotty to be like that and I myself don't want to be like that. Therefore, I have begun to see the world in a whole new light...more like how Dotty sees it. New, exciting, full of possibilities! It is much more fun to see things that way than to see them the other!

I have also started going by the old saying "If you cannot say something nice do not say anything at all" and I like it a whole lot better. Even if I was only joking when I made a comment if it was negative then I know it was on some level hurtful. Of course to those of you who know me best and are reading this you can attest to the fact that I am not perfect. I still have days where I say and do things that are not positive and do not make the world a better place...but I am trying.

I think we should all try harder to be childlike and be happy with the simple things. Dotty tells me every day when I pick her up either from school or from Kathy's "I had a wonderful day." I am sure she did have a wonderful day but I am also sure there were times when she was not getting her way and was thus unhappy about it...yet all she remembers is that she had "a wonderful day".

I hope you all have a wonderful day too!