"I KNOW ITS IN THERE SOMEWHERE"

This was a statement made by my little sister Katie (she's Photographic Adventures under family blogs). She was referring to her drawing talent she recently discovered in an art class. During the conversation she also suggested I had a talent in an area I'd never really thought of. It got me thinking about my own kids. They have many undiscovered talents--how exciting. Uncovering them is part of my job--I know they're in there somewhere.

Of course, some talents are very obvious, like the child who spends at least half of his day drawing or singing or creating. But others take a little more coaxing it seems. Isn't it nice to know that you might have some talents you've never considered before. Its not like there is a time limit of when you have to figure them all out by (that probably wasn't proper grammar). We still have a whole life left to dig them out. Then there are those talents that aren't necessarily physical. I'd say Carl doesn't have a lot of obvious physical talents (although he is very athletic even when he hasn't worked out for years). He was born with a calmness (says his mother) that has helped out in so many situations. He is also nonjudgmental and just naturally likes everyone, I'm hoping over time that that gift has somehow rubbed off on me a little.

Don't you think its so great that there is such a variety of talents. There's really no need to try to keep up with someone else's abilities, but we all try, don't we? As a mom I think its nice that I have some talents I can use for my own unique kids. I think they probably need my specific talents. I realized a couple of weeks ago, after going through a long spell of not singing to them at night, that I can use that one small talent to help them be happy. I had to swallow my irritability and just be happy for a few more minutes in order to sing to them that first night, but its amazing what happened. I loved it and I could see on their faces that they loved it too. What's wonderful is that one of my things is singing and your thing might be reading or painting or listening--it really doesn't matter as long as you can use it to help others.