We slept in on Sunday. It had been a
cool, fresh night Saturday night and we had opened the windows, inviting the crisp
air in, along with the sounds that fill a rural night: crickets, bull frogs,
the occasional loon call and the cracking of twigs under the feet of night
prowling animals. In short, it was heaven. We slept soundly like we were
creatures who belonged to the woods.
The sun was streaming through the
windows when I got up and stretched. A moment later I realized the sun was
higher in the sky than it normally is when I get out of bed. We were late for
our Sunday morning ritual of coffees and breakfast sandwiches at Panera before
church. Over-sleeping is not a common phenomenon for my family. Twila is every
bit as much a morning person as Ryan and I and Jada—well she’s a night owl but
she’s still so young she’s up by seven almost invariably.
So when I realized it was almost
eight, I had to shake the delirium from my head to remember where I was. I threw
some clothes on and started washing my face and brushing my teeth. Usually this
action alone is enough to wake the whole house, but today Ryan was the only one
to get up. Soon we were both ready to go. Without saying it out loud we’d
decided to get as ready as possible without the girls. As I said, they don’t
sleep in often (I can’t remember actually having to wake them up even once in
the last two years) and neither of us had the heart to disturb them.
I woke up my sister who had babysat
the night before and slept over. I picked out clothes for the girls and set
them in stacks next to their sleeping bodies. I walked the dog, put him in his
kennel, loaded the car and took my vitamins. The girls slept on.
Finally there was nothing to do but
to wake them. I sat quietly on the edge of Jada’s bed. I stroked her hair. No
movement. I leaned in close and let my nose brush the skin of her cheek. Her
muscles twitched. I kissed her forehead softly. Jada’s eyes flashed open and
she smiled. Then her eyes shut heavily once more. I kissed the soft part of her
neck, her ear, her cheek. Her eyes stayed shut but she smiled. A couple of
kisses later she reached her arms out and wrapped them around my neck. Then,
before she opened her eyes, she kissed my nose.
As Ryan started helping Jada get
dressed, I went to Twila’s bed and repeated the same process of kissing each of
her facial features. Her eyes blinked open and simultaneously she asked, “Mom,
today after church can we go in the lake so I can show you how I back float?” I
laughed because her brain starts working like this every single morning: even
before her body starts moving.
I’ve been reading about simplicity
parenting lately. Generally, its’ about the “disease” of too much. Too much
stuff, too much information, too many choices and too much speed. Most of the
book has me nodding along fervently (challenged but also validated for many of
the choices we’ve already made for our children). Of course there are many
areas to improve on but the one topic that has me feeling most convicted, as a
modern mother seeking balance in this modern American culture, is the pitfall
of moving too fast in a too-fast world.
The Author, Kim John Payne, points
out how our own awareness of life moving too fast actually makes things worse
because we still buy into the necessity of rushing, cramming many activities
into our day even though we feel an anxiety about it. The problem is we pass on
that anxiety and the helplessness of being dragged along by life, to our
children.
“Is there anything that we don’t
feel the need to rush?” Payne asks. I am challenged by this sentiment because
I, maybe more than most, have a tendency to rush. No, not just rush, to fly
from one thing to the next. I have always prided myself on being productive.
But at what cost?
It’s not a new question. You may
have noticed it’s a challenge I’ve presented to myself nearly every week: “What
am I giving up by moving so fast, finishing so much? Certainly fun, and my own
personal involvement in my kids moment by moment inspirations. But what I
haven’t considered is that this tendency may harm my children more than I
realize.
If we instill values in our children
each moment that we interact with them, what values am I instilling by rushing
us from the store, to the library, to the post office, back to the house to let
the dog out, eat lunch and get naps in so that there is enough time to clean up
and have a snack before the sitter comes; at which time I will rush out the
door to run my own errands?
Jack Petrash, author of Understanding
Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out, describes a revelation he had
about his students on a sunny day out on the play ground, “In some amazing way,
each individual ray of light conveys the sun. In the same way, each individual
child [bears] the image of the divine.”
If we can think like this about our
children, even part of the time, it’s not so hard to slow down. Even a busy
body like myself can stop, sit, be still and listen when I realize the truth
about my children: that when I am with them, I am in the presence of the
divine.
I’ve been looking for it more
lately. So it wasn’t hard to see when we were late for church on Sunday
morning. When I saw my sleeping angels, faces so peaceful and breath so calm, I
was faced with a choice: wake them up with hurried whispers, tapping foot while
I rushed them into clothes and down the hall to the car, or stop, wait, listen
and enjoy. It really wasn’t any choice at all. Some things are worth making you
late.
I breathed in their warmth, basked
in their calm, delighted in the bright sparkle of their eyes, praying silently
that that light will never go out.
As we drove to the coffee shop this
morning Jada looked out her car window on a bright clear morning. “Look!” she
said, “The moon is out!”
“Why is Mr. Moon out?” Twila asked.
“Isn’t the moon only out at night?”
I opened my mouth to launch into an
explanation about moon phases and the position of the earth in relation to the
sun. As a former public school teacher, I have long bought into the need to
“fill” our children with information—and the sooner the better. But this
morning, I stopped myself. I thought about the problems of too much and how
giving our children too much information stymies their natural desire to seek
out answers and discover truths for themselves, not to mention lecturing (no
matter what the intention) can crush the delight of imagination in a heartbeat.
Instead, I considered her question,
“Hmmm,” I thought out loud, “I wonder…”
Soon, Twila had her own answer, “I
bet Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon wanted to have a play date. I bet it was Mr. Moon’s
turn to go to Mr. Sun’s house, here in the day time, and next time Mr. Sun will
have to go visit Mr. Moon at night!”
And on we drove, the girls watching
the grass wiz by in “blurs” and me feeling calm, enjoying my children.
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