I love how inspiration hits you from the strangest places. Earlier today my kids were attempting to bite the wall, a veritable impossibility as their teeth couldn’t get past their chin and nose. They kept at it for a while with great enthusiasm and then happily moved on to other things.

What struck me about the situation was how effortlessly they dealt with the adversity of the whole endeavour. They remained playful in their approach and free from repercussions from their failure to achieve the desired outcome.

While one part of my brain was busy processing this train of thought another part was giggling at the action as analogy for how parenting has felt to me just recently. Hard, no, impossibly challenging, like trying to bite a flat wall.

Whereas this activity would have filled me with frustration my kids were still able to approach it in a playful spirit. Despite all the mindfulness I try to bring to my parenting the fears associated with repercussions of doing a bad job tend to suck the playfulness out of me far too frequently these days. A perfect depiction of the dichotomy of childhood and adulthood just jumped up and slapped me in the face, and managed to make me giggle.

A third part of my brain was screaming ‘you have to photograph this!’ I intend to recreate this scene soon…

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Like trying to bite a flat wall