Stamp this on your forehead

Avery is about four years old. She comes into my clinic with her mom.

One of Avery’s favourite things to do is find one of my office stamps – the kind that stamps my clinic address on cards and magazines and envelopes – and stamp it all over herself. She stamps it on her hands and arms and clothes and neck and face.

I’m a bit flabbergasted, watching this. I love her singlemindedness in covering every bit of bare skin. I love watching her mom smile while this goes on, knowing she’ll be ridiculously busy washing it all off tonight. I love the permissiveness of it, remembering how strictly I was raised, and how there’s no way this would have happened when I was a kid.

I get a kind of vicarious thrill from it all.

And it makes me wonder this: if I could design my own stamp, and stamp it on my forehead, what would it say? It wouldn’t be my clinic address, that’s for sure. I can think of a few things.

I am not as uptight as I look today.

I am kinder at heart than I am out loud.

I make heaps of mistakes, but I mean well.

I love it when you make me laugh.

I’ll love you forever if you help me see all of this in a better light.

You are beautiful. I’ll do my best to see this even when you don’t.

I wish you could know my kids.

I want to do a lot more with my life.

Love wins every time.

I’d need a big forehead for all of that, but there you go.

What about your stamp? What would it say?

Thanks to Avery and to you for the conversation,

kristin