|
Most mornings, we revere a quiet pace around my home. We celebrate
slowness. But today, it is almost noon, and we are late, and I can't
find my keys (though I know I had seen them on the counter just moments
before). I am suspicious.
"Cassie, have you seen my keys?"
"Yes, I've seen them." My three-year-old
is sprawled on the couch with her feet straight up in the air. She
taps her boots together.
"Where did you see them?"
"They are right to the left of behind."
I try again, this time lowering my voice: "Where
are my keys, honey? I don't want to be late."
She gets up. She picks up a ballpoint pen from the
table and hands it to me. "Here are your keys, Mommy,"
she manages to say before collapsing in hysterics.
She looks up, still laughing. (I'm not). "Oh,
now that was a silly joke, Mommy," she laughs some more.
"That was a pen. Not your ke-e-e-e-eys." She pulls
her sister under the table with her. They are both giggling.
Ten minutes later, I had found my keys (where I,
not she, had left them), and got on with the business of loading the
baby in her car seat, finding the preschooler's "might-needs"
for the day, and stashing them into the appropriate places for later.
For the older one, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a "monkey
juice," so named for the orangutan that used to grace the Tang
pouches. For the younger one, crackers, cantaloupe, and a juice sippee
cup. And I've finally remembered our library books.
Apparently, hurrying is antithetical to a preschooler's
very nature. On her way to the car, she stops to hide on the front
porch. Then she makes a pit stop into her playhouse. Then she pauses
to tell me that potatoes don't have blood, but that she does. As Cassie
stands in the driveway reliving yesterday's paper cut and the ensuing
Barbie Band-Aid, I resist the urge to check my watch.
It is then that I have to remind myself that my sense
of urgency is, today, self-serving. I'm a busy mom, but I work hard
to keep my days with the kids "business free." And today,
we are going to a simple playgroup. At this playgroup, we all drop
in and out. No one is watching the clock to see
when we arrive. And no one in particular is waiting for us.
I realize, all at once, that my self-created melodrama
is strangely comforting to me. It's a reminder of those days before
kids when someone was waiting for me to arrive somewhere. When my
false sense of urgency was reflected back to me.
Then I wonder, at this time, what I'm modeling to
my kids. Because we can't simultaneously be frazzled and calm. We
can't simultaneously be agitated and attentive. We can't simultaneously
be fragmented and mindful.
I realize that I could be taking a cue from the child
and not the other way around. And so I give myself a gentle reminder
of the reasons we have consciously chosen a slower pace for our family.
How nourishing it can be to give a child - and her parents - time
to contemplate. Time to allow the day to play out on its own. Time
to accomplish things one slow activity at a time.
We have just hit the highway when Cassie yells from
her car seat: "Mommy! We forgot to play the 'Three Little
Pigs'!" She gasps in mock horror, leaving me to wonder where
she got her sense of drama.
"We'll play when we get home,"
I say. "We'll have plenty of time."
And so we do.
Copyright 2003 Susie Cortright
Susie Michelle Cortright is the author of several books for women
and founder of the award-winning Momscape.com, a website designed
to help busy women find balance. Visit http://www.momscape.com
today and get Susie's *free* course-by-email "6 Days to Less
Stress."
|
