December 14 – Appreciate What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? (Author: Victoria Klein)

The beauty of the person in front of me. Thinking is great. Having a functioning brain allows me to write stories, make a new recipe and pay bills. But the mind has its limits. I find this to be most true as I think about other people. I can have thoughts about people I know until I am exhausted. This includes mere acquaintances and my very own children. The key part of this thinking is that these people I am pondering are usually nowhere in sight. I have nothing to back-up these thoughts, save my preconceived notions and a rambling brain. If someone is right in front of me, I can see, intimately, how incredible and beautiful they really are (unless they are yelling at me, but 5 year-olds do that). When I see you face-to-face, it is so much easier to focus in on you and leave preconceived ideas behind. This became most apparent in my relationships with my children this year. And I am so thankful for times I was able to be present with my daughters and with all the people I encounter each day. This doesn’t always happen, but I am thankful each time it does occur.

The beauty of the person in front of me has been an integral idea as we go through testing my daughter for learning issues and getting her extra help. Looking at a piece of paper that judges and rates your child based on some scale you know precious little about has its limits. So does talking about your child with other adults when that child is not right in front of you. When I am with Annie, I can see her beauty, her potential, her smarts and her perseverance. I know, right then, and probably only then, that she is going to be just fine. She is more than just fine. The girl rocks the house every single day.