A thousand words and fears

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

But what they don't tell you is that it's also worth a thousand fears.

This picture is one that left me full of fear.

And pride.

But mostly fear.

And I'm not sure everyone can understand.

Because in reality I don't understand it completely myself.

Here it is, however.  The picture that now swells my heart.  But in the moment gave me such pause.

And also gives me so much hope for the future.

She was not afraid.

She wanted to show off her flag she got at Pride.

Pride we take her too so that our family is normalized in her mind.

This is what we want to accomplish.

Her finding nothing wrong here, no fear, no hesitation, no nothing.

And we got it in this moment.

But we were nervous.  I cannot lie, I was scared.

I was scared.

But she wasn't.

May we all have this faith in humanity.

May we all feel the elation she felt waving her flag as we walked around a small shopping district near us.

May we all feel this abandonment as we happily show off our colors.

Because this 3 year old child felt this way.

I learn so much from her every day.

And this lesson is one I feel everyone can share in.

Be proud.

Never fear.

You are accepted and loved here.

Barefoot at the park

What's that?

Take your shoes off and run around barefoot in the woods?

Ok!

So it wasn't the plan, but hey!  She is enjoying herself.

This park date was super fun.  She played so hard and got so sweaty and stinky, just how kids should be!

Oh and these ducks!  We were looking at the lake area in this park.

And these ducks came around the corner.

I honestly think they thought the pebbles the kids were throwing into the lake was food of some kind.

But they then followed the kids from there to the little dock, and I think would have followed them more if we had stayed near the water.

I promised the kid that we would come back soon with duck food for them.

We haven't made it yet, but we will dammit!

All in all a great day.