Year of Gratitude - February

I'm sitting here feeling grateful. 

Grateful for what I have and who I have to share it with.

It took me a couple days to work up to feeling grateful this month. However. Today I can - with some discipline - focus on the good.

Aside from a dumping over of a bowl of cereal (no milk, thank goodness) and a few outbursts, we had a calm morning. We snuggled in bed. She coloured for a few minutes (by choice!!!). The boys were independent. Finleigh kept her boots on in the car on the way to school. And the weather felt almost balmy (except a quick check over at the weather network tells me the it's -29˚C with the windchill, so not so balmy, I guess my good mood just made everything feel better).

So, I'm grateful for relatively calm mornings.

I'm grateful for books. I love books. So does my husband. But more specifically, today I'm grateful that my boys love books too. Here are their bedside tables...

How cute are they? My bookish boys.

I'm thankful for my parents - and my in-laws for that matter. Brian and I scored well when we were born into the families we were. We have two sets of supportive parents. Both married 40+ years. Both willing to help us out when they can. Both putting effort into understanding our children. And loving them. My children are loved unconditionally by all of them. Unconditionally, I have no doubt about that. And I can imagine that this SMS diagnosis hit them as hard as it hit Brian and I. It's been hard for them too, watching us struggle. Hearing our stories. Coming to terms with all that comes along with SMS. And they've done it like champs. Grateful doesn't even begin to describe my true feelings here. I know how lucky I am.

And because I can leave my kids with my parents, I got to do this with my husband last week...

A quiet supper at home - and wine. An evening of binge watching Breaking Bad. Of fancy chocolates. Of an uninterrupted sleep and a peaceful waking up.

I'm grateful for date nights.

I'm grateful for our behaviour therapist who is truly taking the time to understand our "intriguing" daughter. He's never worked with another SMS'er before and he is willing to admit that he's still figuring her out. He hasn't given us pat answers. He hasn't given me one printout to read… as if I don't know the basics in parenting. He has done nothing but be encouraging and try to dig into her behaviour to try to help us live slightly more normal lives. Always, when you have a child like Finn, any professional that's willing to take the time your child needs to help her is amazing. She's not typical. She doesn't fit the regular mould. So, she needs that extra time. This is not something that one generally expects. It is special. And we're deeply lucky to have this service funded and to have a doctor who is willing to spend the time to help us.

I'm even grateful for this...

My daughter getting ahold of my phone and taking a whole lot of pictures of her Ferby's eyeball. I got a chuckle when I saw these last night. Other days it might frustrate me because she's not supposed to touch my phone, but today I chose to find it cute and appreciate her and all her personality.

So that, retrospectively, are a few things I'm grateful for from the month of February.

Linking up with Jane in this beautiful endeavour to look out our lives more gratefully.