Pumpkin asked me the other day, as I reminded her of the
time for the fifth time that morning, why “grownups always lie about the time.”
I stopped dead in my nagging tracks. “What do you mean?” “Well,” she started
slowly explaining, “you said it was already 7:15 and it’s only 7:11. And you
always do that. It’s like when you told me I had to start doing things for
myself because I was 7 before I even turned 7.”
Talk about an early morning gut-check.
Why do grownups do that? Why do I do that? She, of course,
in her complete innocence, didn’t realize the profound questions she was making
me ask myself. Billy Joel’s “Vienna” starts playing in my head – a song that I often
here in my states of over-stressed melancholy - reminding me to "slow down, you crazy child."
Here I am still reeling from the fact that she did actually
turn 7 just two weeks ago and I spend so much time and energy hurrying her –
hurrying them both – worried about the next appointment, the next event. Always
worrying about what is coming, what I need to do, where we need to be – losing,
in that worry, the moment. So caught up in keeping up with life that I miss out
on living.
As much as I hate to admit it, it’s also reflected back at
me by our little Bug, who in the middle of the most fun-imaginable day chock
full of carnivals and candy and friends and games, will ask me, “what other fun
thing are we going to do after this?” It makes me crazy. I try to tell her to
just enjoy what we are doing, which is obviously sounding like Charlie Brown’s
teacher to her – especially when she looks at my actions in always rushing,
worrying, checking off boxes, and scheduling more “to dos.”
So I couldn’t explain to Pumpkin why grownups do that. But
what I could do – and what I did – was promise her that we would have a
slow-down summer. We have things planned, but they are not going to cause us
stress. I’m not going to be so adamant about a schedule that I miss an
opportunity. We are going to be bored and see what kind of fun we can create
with that boredom. We are going to smell flowers – literally. And we are never,
ever going to say that it’s a time that it isn’t. Those 4 extra minutes could
hold magic for us.
Most importantly, mama is going to “cool it off before [she]
burn[s] it out.”
And I hope this summer to find more time to write here and
elsewhere; but I’m not going to stress if I don’t find that time because they are only this age once.
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