On living slow

SIS: "Who was she going to see???"
ME: "Her boyfriend."
AUNTIE: "I DON'T HAVE A BOYFRIEND!"
ME: "Daniel" *snicker* SIS: *glances as AUNTIE and back at ME with a knowing smile and snicker* She's going to be nine in seven weeks. She'll be moving out in eight... Not really. I tend to over exaggerate the drama in my life, it's what I live for.

We had this conversation yesterday and it was funny because Kennedy has jumped conversation brackets. The other kids still get giggles and tickles. She's moving past that. We talk about why people behave the way they do when it seems to make such perfect sense for them to do the right thing. We talk about the things girls have to deal with as they grow like why sometimes she has a best friend at church one week and the next her best friend moves when she sits down by her. It's exciting to me that we are already building the conversation in our relationship. I fully anticipated her being twelve before that started to take effect. It's thrilling! What's more, she'll be eleven in two years. According to social services standards, she can legally baby sit when she turns eleven!

I was thinking about it at work the other night; she'll be eleven in two years! Where did the days go? How did we jump from toddling in Nebraska to earrings and fashion girl leggings in Missouri? My friend told me about a book she was reading on reverse parenting, the concept being that you focus your attention on the LASTS instead of the FIRSTS in their childhood. The last time they take a bottle, the last time they crawl instead of walk; the last time they ask you to tie your shoes. It forces you to savor the moments instead of wishing them away. It's brilliant.

Everyone's busy. When people ask me how it's going I almost always say, "Pretty nuts!" And when I ask them, they almost always say, "I've been really busy," or "We've had a lot going on." I don't like to be status quo. I never have liked it, though I have ridden the tide plenty in my life. I decided that I want to slow down the clock. If I spend my days busy, I'll busy myself to the end. While I think it's important to be busy at home, Titus 2:5, it's equally as important to be present at home. I find myself putting off little requests for things like playing games or watching shows or even looking at forts. Things that take only moments I put off to do dishes and laundry and take naps. I have a new inspiration to live slowly. I don't ever want to tell anyone it's been crazy around here. Crazy is the norm. That's like saying, "It's been normal around here!" I want to say it's a wonderful life; it is. And so I'll budget my time better, organize my responsibilities more carefully, not piddle away time sitting in front of this blasted screen, and TRAIN myself to hear the questions when they are fired at me a million a minute.