Lessons

Recently, Little Guy walked in on me trimming my eyebrows with a tiny pair of scissors, or as I like to call it, getting the Italian out. He asked tons of questions and though I tried to explain about the scissors near the eyes and the need for a grown-up and that he should never ever do this himself and that he would probably never need to do it, I could see the wheels turning.

He ran off to play and I thought - well, that was a mistake. Add that to the list of mistakes I have made so often as a parent. Sometimes innocently enough, but still.

Then the other day I heard this report on NPR. The piece was not about parenting, it was about Syrian politics, though one could say that both are equally chaotic (or at least I might say it). This reference is not in the text, but during the broadcast when the reporter asked the interviewee about mistakes, he corrected him and called them lessons. This struck a chord with me.

So I'm not making mistakes, I am making lessons. I think, for now, I'll go with that. And hide those little scissors too.