Who's Brilliant Idea Was That?

Children are gifts from God. I believe this to be true with every fiber of my being. When it comes to their toys, however, I find myself unable to reconcile myself to this point of view.

Children's toys are always brightly colored and more and more they seem to come with all sorts of moving parts and sound effects. As entertaining as these moving parts and sounds may seem to a child, they are a source of never ending irritation for the parent of that child.

I used to blame the individuals who purchased these toys for the child, however, lately I find myself leaning more towards placing the blame on whatever manufacturer decided that it would be a good idea to make a toy that only has one volume (loud) and one setting (on) and then decided that it would be really cool to make that toy a motion activated one.

I refuse to believe that these manufacturers have children because I cannot fathom how any parent would willingly dispense such a terrible weapon upon a fellow parent. When a child's toy starts playing The Itsy Bitsy Spider at full volume in the middle of prayer service, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star begins blaring incessantly during Grandmothers funeral service, it is more than enough to make any new mother want to sink through the floor in utter shame.

So while I do not see much chance of any relief from the obnoxiously loud, wiggling, rattling, motion activated toys, I encourage young parents everywhere to take heart and rest easy because there is a special circle of hell reserved for the inventors, manufacturers and distributors of these toys. A circle that is surrounded by brightly colored, cheerfully singing, life size toys.

Through the eyes of a child

Today had been a great day. Not because I received some massive sum of money, or because I received fantastic news. No, it was great because I have been acting like a child for the majority of the day. First my girlfriend and I went for a 2 mile run, the better part of which was spent skipping around or randomly sprinting down the street. Then we went to Smoothie King where we consumed 40 ounces of strawberry banana heaven. From there we went to Wal-mart with the sole purpose of printing 19 pictures and and hour later we left with our sides hurting because we hid in the kitty litter shelves and danced to the theme song from Rocky and meowed at passing customers. After then we had lunch and picked up the kids from school and joined them in jumping rope in the front yard while giggling hysterically.

While I was sitting on the porch panting because I am far to large to be jumping up and down for 15 minutes straight I realized that I have not laughed that hard in longer than I can remember. This brought me to the conclusion that while life is not easy and each day promises to bring its fair share of problems, a healthy portion of child like antics and the laughter they produce will do wonders for the soul.

Therefore my "mid way through new year's" resolution is to wake up each day and put my 24 years of maturity and stress on the shelf and view each day with the awe and wonder of a child.

Who am I?

Who can truly answer that question? Are we truly capable of looking at ourselves honestly and voicing what we really see? The most common responses to this question typically involve descriptive words. Mother, daughter, strong, caring etc.. And while those are probably all accurate descriptions of what I am to the people in my life, they do not really answer the question of WHO I am.

More and more I have begun to feel that there is simply no way to truthfully give an answer, because who I am is ever changing. Who I am today is not the same as who I was yesterday and tomorrow I will be someone different. This is because everything that happens to me today affects who I become tomorrow. The differences will be small, perhaps even unnoticeable, but they will still be there.

Therefore while I still cannot express WHO I am, I can sum up WHAT I am in eight words. I am the continual evolution of a soul. Though I am far from perfect, I view every day as another opportunity for me to finally reach the only being in the universe that can truly answer the question ‘Who am I?’, and that is the Great I Am.