Giving Thanks

It's October. And for some reason Thanksgiving is THIS coming weekend. Which  seems odd to me because 9 years ago I got married on Thanksgiving weekend, but my anniversary is not until next weekend.

And this whole not doing Daylight Savings time until November thing is throwing me for a loop too. We set our alarms a half-hour earlier this morning and the kids refused to believe that it was indeed time to get up, because it was still so dark outside.

Anyways...

As I was saying, it is October and because I like a challenge and because I like my friends AND because I really do have so much to be thankful for in my life, I am joining Zita and Kevin and blogging all month long about THANKFULNESS.

And forgive me if this is not really in the spirit of things, but man, oh, man, am I thankful that September is DONE! That was a long, hard month and it zoomed by so quickly that I don't even remember most of it!

We have all finally settled into our routines and things have calmed down and I feel like I can start to breath again.

Which brings me to my thankfulness today.

My kids are in a fabulous dance/yoga class. The teacher is fantastic, the yoga studio where it is held is wonderful and my kids are learning about different cultures and cultural dances and movement and they are both loving it.

And in their class is an amazing little girl. She is 3 years old and has the energy of at least 3 other kids. She is bright and fun and GO, GO, GO.

And she is losing her hair.

Her long strawberry blond locks are falling out because she has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Her mama told me yesterday that her chances for remission are very good (like 97% good), but she still has 2 years of chemotherapy ahead of her.

I have been thinking about this little girl for the past 24 hours and the thing that I can't get out of my mind is her spirit and her energy. And then today, it hit me and I finally understood why I could not stop thinking about her.

She is 3 years old!

She is like my own little girl. She runs, she plays, she sings, she dances, she fights with her older sibling and at times she does not listen to her mama and gets into trouble.

She is just a kid, being a regular kid , doing regular kid things and who, on some days, also happens to have to deal with some highly irregular cancer treatment stuff.

I am thankful to be able to see this little person's incredible joie de vivre once a week. Because that is what it is like for most three year olds, right? The sheer JOY OF LIVING!

Not the constant worrying about every little thing and all the craziness that we subject ourselves to and the rushing from here to there and back again, just to get it all done, just to have days or months or years fly by without really living them.

Today I am thankful for that little whirlwind of a girl, who is a reminder to me to celebrate the JOY that is this life I am living and all the wonderful (big and small) that is in it!

Natasha~

And baby turkeys, I am also thankful for baby turkeys!