Thursday, March 22, 2007

Scribbles and Scrambles - Yikes!

I'm visiting Nanny-land today.

Something a little scary occurred to me over our lunch.

It took a minute to sink in amidst the whine of activity.

No, my revelation wasn't that I required my daughter to cut my pizza into bite size pieces, thank you very much.

While the three-year-old related a story she raised her chubby little fingers over her head and made air quotation marks.

This shouldn't shock me considering I know both her mother and her nanny, but the fact that I've never seen a three-year-old quite pull this sly and smooth movement off made me stop and think.

We are such products of our environment. Both where we are forced to live, and where we choose to live (physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally.)

To bring it even closer to home, people are watching us and catching our attitudes and quirks.

Nanny has been shaped by me, forever scarred, and is passing my influence along to the next generation. As amusing as that is, the good stuff anyway, I cringe when I realize that some of my not so wonderful attitudes have been passed to my children as well.

What if we all made a few promises to ourselves.

That I will stop and think before I act.
I will act as if I want to bless others.

I'll "try." How about you?