Changing Perspectives

Viviana sporting a blue tongue

photo by Rick

Today, Rick and I did "story time" after school for the second and third grade.  Rick read a book about a crocodile that thought he was a duck.  Martin was *not* pleased.  He had on his angry face and he wouldn't walk by himself and kept mumbling, "Why we no play legos?"  And then, after about two pages, he was hooked.

While I was sitting, pretending it was the most fascinating story I'd ever heard in order to get the kids invested, Yajaira and Viviana, the twins climbed up on my lap, one on each leg.  Now, these girls aren't tubs are anything , but they. are. solid. All muscle those two.  It was like I had two baby giants on my knees, and I felt so small and petite by comparison, even while I'm no lightweight myself.

My thoughts wandered back to a different time in Taiwan a few years back when I signed up for an aerobics class with a bunch of young Taiwanese women.  I was trying to lose weight at the time, and was succeeding.  Every morning, I would take a shower and then look at my belly in the mirror and think, "Today. Today!  Today I will not feel HUMONGOUS compared to those beautiful wisps of women."  And then I would walk into the class with three walls of mirrors, surrounded by teeny, tiny, petitist-of-petite ladies, and look at my big German-English frame fumbling around to the salsa moves and think, "I'm an AMAZON!"

It was funny to feel the perspective shift.