The stuff that matters

It's kind of like being content, right? Finding the stuff that matters? I try hard every single day to teach my kids that it's love that counts, not touch screens; kindness, not headphones. (Of course, I'm a bit of a gadget geek and that makes it hard to teach this lesson. But, I do try.)

I shared this picture of me and my grandmother on Instagram and Facebook. I really don't like to post the same things on all places, but maybe this is what really matters? Hanging out with your 89 year old grandmother?

Selfie with MomMom - what am I looking at?

I'm sitting here on the couch, listening to the rain come and go. The boy was supposed to have a baseball game, but it got called after the men finally acknowledged that it wasn't letting up. I got home and saw on Facebook that there is a man with a gun in a large wooded area the next town over - where we have friends and where we worship. It's frightening. There are fights erupting in the comments of the news story about guns and rights and laws and I just keep thinking there just isn't enough kindness.

My 12 year old is next to me and I asked if she has one of the ask.me sites (I'm a little lost on the actual name) where people can ask anonymous questions. (She doesn't.) I told her I don't like them because people can be mean on them. Her response was that people can be mean anywhere. Right.

School is ending and the kids are at the end of their ropes, too. They're tense and tired and maybe done with the deadlines and permission slips, too. They're testy with each other and roll their eyes at my suggestions of showing love to one another. (I may have threatened to make them sit in a row on the couch, holding hands and smiling for an hour.)

I sure hope that what we end up teaching our kids is that kindness matters. I want to be known as someone who was kind. (And funny. I do like to be funny.) I personally think that the stuff that matters always starts with kindness.