In My Old Age

So I know that I am not old in terms of actual years, but I feel like these past four months or so have taught me so much. I am learning tons of life lessons most people have to wait years to learn. Who knew living with my mother would be so informative. I get to see her regrets and learn from her mistakes as well as my own.

This morning I was talking with the neighbor at the bus stop waiting for the bus. We were talking about the new house, the yard sale next door, how she biked 15 miles yesterday. She is totally a rad girl. I was telling her how I am my heaviest ever. Seriously we can laugh about the "My Gut is Growing", but it is not funny anymore as I tip the scales towards obese. Kind as she is she offers up the adage of you just had a baby. I tell her how I used to go to the gym, currently don't but am still indulging in the caloric filled food I love. She let me know of a cool walk that was two miles to take the kids on (Rockville Rd).

I get the kids breakfast, get them dressed, and wonder if I should really take the walk or let them watch cartoons, while I get some work done (our normal morning routine now days). When I put it like that it seems a no brainer. So I clod them with shoes and socks and off we go. We start walking and Wyatt harrasses me for cutting through the field, which is our neighbor's property. Grandma says not to go past the trees and he is listening to her because she is in charge of this yard.

Honestly, side note here: Wyatt has become the funniest little boy ever. In the past two weeks he has come into his own. He is so sweet and he doesn't try to be funny, but everything he says is so funny. And he smiles this slightly embarrased smile when I laugh at him, like he is just so flattered.

Back to story. So we start our walk and the boys are so slow and picking up every rock along the road and I think this is doing nothing for me in terms of exercise. But I fight the urge to push them ahead thinking that they'll never want to take a walk again if they have to jog to keep up.

And so we wander aimlessly more or less down the road and path we set out on, but with a different goal. Because as I watch the boys I realize this is way more fun than an aerobic walk. We found some deer a man is keeping fenced along with an ostrich. We saw birds and squirrels. We wandered along a stream. And on our way back walking up the same field we originally trespassed on, Wyatt starts chasing butterflies. Issac follows of course.

They are zigzagging across this field trying to keep track of them. They don't realize at first that there are tons and they are losing track of the original and taking off after others until much later. I stand there with the baby strapped to me in the Snugli, back sort of aching because my 7 month soon to be 8 month old Kody is no baby anymore. And I know that right now this is the most important thing I could be doing. The bills can wait, the change of address cards, the flowerbeds, etc...

They might not remember this moment twenty years from now. I would be surprised if I did. But I will remember next time I want to push the kids into my routine how fun doing their routine was. And that just might be enough to let me indulge in doing it their way again. Kids are only young once. I see that my mom misses small children and I am sure that day exists for me too, regardless of how much time I spend with them now, but wouldn't it truly be sad if I didn't because I was too busy for all the fun moments.

So that lesson is one I feel mighty blessed to have been retaught today. The others are:

Sometimes I don't have to have control over everything.

It's okay if we don't have assigned seating at the dinner table.

It's great to let the kids pray when they want to pray instead of a preset order. Even if occasionally it means more than one prayer or tears.

Talking with my kids now may make or break if they want to talk to me later.

A clean house isn't worth anything if no one is enjoying it. (I still want to be clean, let's not be too crazy.)

And last: Yard sales are a cheap source for cute and clean clothes. Or at least in the instance of my neighbor here.