Lessons from a Hula Hoop…

*Tomorrow is my birthday.   Tomorrow I will be old (okay, okay not really….I’ll be 37)  I noticed it feels a bit like spring outside as we finished up a few errands and on a whim I grabbed a hula hoop from the toy department.   I have never been successful at hula hooping but it looks so stinkin’ fun!  And I was inspired by this….

Anyway I bought a hoop right….the kids and I tried it out….and I could not do it.   I watched video after video (hooping is so easy, I just taught an 80 yr old woman to do it.  Blah blah blah)  Defeated and mostly feeling old and fat (I blame everything on being fat) I almost gave up and then I read something interesting.   Turns out that the hoop must be a whole lot bigger than the ones you find in the toy section to work.  It wasn’t because I didn’t have the ability, it wasn’t because I was old and it certainly wasn’t because I am fat….it wasn’t me at all, it was the tool.

I immediately thought of my children.  These little guys are trying to navigate a scary world with inferior tools and often rather than recognizing it isn’t the child that is the problem, it’s the tools that they are using I become frustrated and discouraged.  So I ordered a bigger hula hoop and decided to focus a bit more giving these little ones the tools they need.  Survival skills are important but just like a too small hoop you can’t keep them spinning for long.  In the end you are worn out and the hoop is still on the floor.

*so, um yeah…today is my birthday…this got published late.  Hey, if I wasn’t late I wouldn’t show up at all….