30 Days of Beauty

"without knowing it, man composes his life according to the rules of beauty, even in the moments of deepest hopelessness"
Milan Kundera

This quotation has been up in my kitchen for a decade, and before that it was up in my classroom where it helped me greatly in the teaching of large groups of 11-16 year olds! I have been looking at it a lot these past couple of days with the 30 Days of Beauty on my mind.

The sun hit a few things this morning and made breakfast a warm and glowing affair.

Whilst I was chopping the fruit for the whole family to munch on Frank busied himself making a "breakfast a-chine" (he doesn't put the "m" on "machine" yet and pronounces it rather like a small sneeze; too cute) using all his shells and stones from his nature table. By the time the tea and muesli and toast all arrived the table looked very splendid.

I struggled over the past couple of days to find beauty and yesterday was difficult as we had a hospital appointment for a simple blood test for Frank.

There are suspicions that his thyroid might be having problems.

It went rather traumatically and he cried a lot. He was so brave but clearly felt rather violated and I just don't know how to help him with that other than all the stuff I am already doing.

Lots of hugs and love and reassurance.

He said he didn't want people to see him crying and feeling so bad.

That just about broke my heart.

And yet he bounced back and was marauding around the house yesterday evening wearing his "I've been super brave" sticker from the "hopsital" with pride.

Lots of people tell me how resilient children are.

I can see it in motion in all its beauty in my gorgeous little boy.

Maybe they should do stickers for parents too?

But what would they say?