Friday, April 8, 2011

Slowing Down

I am making a vow right here and now to slow it down. Come on, who is with me?

This evening Peylyn and I went to return a light bulb at Wal-Mart and as usual I put her in the cart and bolted through the parking lot, made a bee line to customer service and headed off to the kitchen section. Yeah, don't judge me...I returned a light bulb that we ended up not needing and put my money towards a glass loaf pan.

I decided to also head to the back and grab a bottle of wine. Peylyn was squirming and trying to get out of the cart and I am desperately trying to entertain her. So I grabbed a bottle and decided to take her out and let her walk. My biggest worry about letting a little one walk is always all of the other people that are too absorbed into their own shopping to bother watching out for little ones. Being the awesome little girl that she is she gladly took my hand and we very slowly made our way to the front of the store.

It was the sweetest thing ever! She had my hand in one hand and my wallet in the other and she was just taking it all in. Touching bags on shelves, feeling the produce and rubbing fabric...why on earth do we rush through awesome experiences like this? As I was walking back to the wine I thought to myself how dizzying the lights are in stores like this and add on top of that going at fast speeds, I can only imagine how it feels from their perspective. The lights were not half as bad when we went through the store at Peylyn's speed.

It hit me that I have been having to teach myself to slow it down and be patient in the kitchen with all of my new cooking and fermenting to get great results, of course if I slow it down with my kids I will also get great results there as well. We rush through life expecting them to take it in so fast and then we have 10 year old that are acting like 16 year olds and we can't figure out why. I was having such a great time with her that even the people that huffed and sped around us didn't bother me. Normally I am the person huffing at all of the people that are holding me up.

So, right here and now I am taking the vow that I will do my best to let my kids lead the way. I will go at their speed and let them take in everything that they want and not complain that they need to "hurry it up."

I just wish that this lesson would have come before we took our after dinner walk (thank goodness for warmer weather) this evening. Looking back I know I sounded like a broken record...come on, keep up, let's go, speed it up guys...ugh.

3 comments:

  1. I love letting Flynn walk around at the store. I try to pick isles that he can't pull glass stuff down, and it's certainly work to keep him from pulling the flappy tags off the shelves, but, he really gets the opportunity to experience all the colors and textures. I occasionally have to remind myself to slow down and let him take the reigns for a while.. I think you can learn a lot from a little one by doing that.

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  2. This is something that does not come naturally to me. I am all business on errands. Get in, get item, get out. Unless we are thrifting. That is slow work and Kai usually comes along for that but stays at home for a lot of other stuff. I convince myself that it is because he wants to hang out with Jake that he tells me he wants to stay home, but it is probably because grocery shopping with me is annoying. When we take walks going at his pace without telling him to keep going or whatever definitely takes a concentrated effort on my part. It is even harder for Jake, I think because he doesn't have quite as much practice. Let's help each other this summer to remember to be slow.

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