Five Minute Friday - Perspective

Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama does a Five Minute Friday post each week on a topic she chooses.  Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking

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Topic: Perspective

There was a muffled crash and a squeal from her dark room.  Then a call for me.

"Mommy!  I have problem!  I keep rolling over!"  At my evident question as to why rolling over in a bed should be a problem she explained, "On my head!  And I fall!"

She must have been able to see better than I could in the dark because to clear up the look of confusion on my face she said, "Here, I'll show you. " Then she turned around, set her head down on the edge of her mattress and kicked her feet up onto the wall, falling sideways in the process back onto her bed. 

"See," she said plaintively, "I keep rolling over and I can't do it."

I laughed and asked her if she really expected me to help her with that particular problem when it was forty-five minutes past her bedtime.  Her real problem, I explained, was that she was supposed to be sleeping and that was hard to do while standing on your head.

As I think about her troubles I realize how often I'm there trying to stand on my head, or focused on getting that one extra errand in before nap time and I don't see my real problem.  Maybe a little girl needing a bit of her Mommy's attention or a bigger boy who really wants to finish the story he started an hour ago and needs an audience.

Most likely, if I could just shift my perspective from the problem I'm trying to solve to the actual thing I should be doing, things might go a little more smoothly.

And then when I'm more well rested and I have the help of, say, some benevolent giant, I can tackle that "I can't stand on my head" problem a little more efficiently.