Mind your p's and q's...

...please! I've been sitting crocheting and crocheting...and crocheting for the last week or so and when I do such mindless, repetitive craft I come over all reflective and thoughtful. I also get a smug-pride buzz at having stuck with something long enough to get it to finished-ness (see pic). I confess to having two unfinished jumpers and a scarf sitting in the basket taunting me. Parts of which have been waiting for me for a couple of years. Disgragraceful.
Back to the reflection. My post from a couple of weeks ago about 'making beautiful' in order to bring cheeriness to life started this brain train. It got me thinking about manners and why I am constantly withholding items from children awaiting the magic words. I give my husband the odd elbow to the rib cage, too. He doesn't do the polite 'thanks for your help' smile very often. It's often more of a 'garrumph' and on with the next thing and this gives me the snoots because, to me, manners make the world go around.
We've all been there. That place that forgot it's manners. We've all met that person who left their manners at home, and it's not a pleasant spot. When you head in to a shop to get some advice and get the short shrift from the sales person, it can be a day breaker. Especially if you've just spent two hours having the 'get your $!?/@ clothes on' battle then wrangling two, or three unwilling children in to the car.
I think manners display the presence of compassion and respect because without one their generally isn't the other.
I recently did the colossal ten jobs in a morning with two kids in tow with a pleasant stop at the library planned to tie it all off. Just to start my unravelling, I had to park several hundred kilometres away. Well, it felt like that by the time I'd got my darlings out of the car, unloaded and reloaded our tonne of books in to the pusher (+ one child), dragged this load and the protesting three year old across the most difficult intersection in town and in to the library. I probably should mention it started raining torrentially just as we set off, prompting the need to move faster. We must have looked like drowned rats as we approached the book chute. I was panting from exertion, we all had water dripping from our noses and the three year old was close to tears.
After several long days of passionate non-cooperation from my son, I proudly watched on as he helpfully put pile after pile of books into the chute. Then out comes Mrs 'I've had sour apples and bran for breakfast' to reprimand my Harold the Helper for banging the chute door too hard. She then looked, at my daughter in the pusher, soaked to the skin and pointed out that she was wet. I thus got an up and down, irresponsible mother look, before she went back to her ever so strenuous book sorting. A few pleases and thank you's or a 'let me help you, poor soggy little family' would have been so welcome. But no, she went off in a snoot, and so did I.
Kind of says it, really. I think manners are a kind of interpersonal equivalent to visual beauty. They take the harshness out of daily life, make day to day interactions uplifting and allow difficult negotiations to be resolved with happy faces and respectful nods at the end. When my children mind their p's and q's it can even leave me feeling that they ARE grateful, respectful and thoughtful children, even though I know, sometimes, they are not.



Here are the drawings all fresh and still grey-leady for my new buntyandsars colouring book. I've made it in response to buntyandsars followers wanting an alternative for the under four set. So, I've sucked the essence out of the current colouring range, simplified it and come up with a set of twenty bold, basic and familiar images for clumsy, fat little hands. I'll trial it on my own under fours and let you know how they go. Then it's off to the printer!
Have you got a gap in Saturday? I'm off to rock the Daylesford Maker's Market and I'd love to see lots of cheery faces, so do come along. It starts at 10 and for the late starters and we'll be there until three.