My friend, “Have you had a chance to look in your box yet?”
Me, “No. I feel like I haven’t stopped since Sunday.”
~~~~~~~~~
The days are spinning. I try to think back over what I’ve done the last few days, weeks and nothing significant comes to mind. Just the living. The getting up and the going to school and work and the coming home and the feeding everyone and the bathing and the sleeping and all of it blending together to form a life lost in the details.
~~~~~~~~~
Cady, “I’ll be nine this year.”
The nurse, “Really? That’s cool. When’s your birthday?”
Cady, “December.”
The nurse chuckled, “That’s a pretty long ways off.”
Cady, “I guess.”
~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday I was struck by the difference in kid time and adult time. Children look forward to everything and make an event out of the every day.
This weekend Cady’s school is hosting a family fun day fundraiser to raise money for the PTO. They will have silly games and give out plastic trinkets as prizes. I will see it as a chore, a duty to go to support the school. Cady sees it has an event, something to be treasured.
My kids will see the brightly colored pieces of plastic as hard won trophies for jumping a potato sack across a finish line. I will see it as something else that has to be cleaned up and thrown away, a mess, a burden.
Children are able to turn the little things into something grand, the everyday into the fantastic. When do we lose that? What happens to make us forget what it is like to revel in the joy of a carnival game? Is that the point where we start dreading the every day? The point where things start blending together into a sea of a forgetful life?
~~~~~~~~~
Receptionist, “He wants to see you again in six weeks. Let’s see, that will be April 9th.”
Me, “Really?! April is that soon?”
~~~~~~~~~
James will be five in April. He will start kindergarten in the fall. Every time I’m reminded of that fact I feel a clench in my gut at the speed of time. The phrase, “the days are long and the years are short,” rings so true for me now that I’m a parent.
I wonder if it is because I’m so focused on the getting up and the going to and the coming back and the feeding and the bathing and the sleeping that I’ve forgotten how to turn chores into magic. Perhaps the answer to slowing time is remembering.
I also want to know when we lose that. It’s a really good question…
Yeah… Too bad I don’t have a really good answer.
I need to focus more about on here and now and try to teach that too my kids too.
Great post.
Thanks. My kids do a pretty good job of it. I just need to learn from them.
Time is wicked fast. I can make myself crazy thinking about all the milestone events that will be happening with my children in the next few years. And knowing that the years will pass in a blink of an eye makes me panicky.
Thank you for reminding me to spend a little time this weekend enjoy the ordinary little moments.
Slipping