Kind Echoes

While in our Women’s Circle a week ago we began to discuss how our children seem to be able to live in the moment. They are just interested in what they are presently doing and put all their energy into that one thing. It really made me pause and consider how I have been living my life. Certainly not so much in the moment. You know, I have this to-do list in my head, if not written down on paper, and it contains things that I need to get done that day or by a certain time and I am constantly trying to determine when I need to move on to the next task even before I am completely done with the one I am doing. I can and will read my daughter a story, but often while reading it I start to think about how much time I have left before I have to make dinner and what can I get done in that time…another load of laundry or should I try to get that pile of papers read and recycled?
That was rattling around in my head when I was sent the first ever edition of MOPS International’s MOMSNext ezine. One of the articles was titled “Batman vs. the Multi-tasker”
by Lorraine Duffy Merkl and after reading that article (http://www.mops.org/page.php?pageid=2592&srctype=referral) I was 100% certain that I really was not living in the moment with my daughter.
Today I had a chance to redeem myself! Yeah! Don’t you love those second chances we get? Danielle and I were scheduled to meet some MOPS friends at Bounce U for a day of fun for the kids and chatting for the moms. Well, with schedule conflicts and sick kids it turned out that Danielle and I were on our own at Bounce U and THEN we discovered there were only 5 other kids enjoying the Preschool time with us. (The other 2 times we have been there there were about 30 or more kids) What a treat! We bounced, played, laughed, and went down the big slide so many times I was sweating…yes sweating! It was the BEST workout without wanting it to be a workout. As I climbed the slide for the 1,245, 659th time I paused at the top not to just catch my breath but to THANK GOD for giving me this time with my daughter. How lucky am I? I am home with her as she grows and changes every day and today…the day before her 3rd birthday…I get to have FUN with her and my to-do list was no one to be seen.
Kind echoes are there sometimes when we throw our to-do lists out the window!