Slowing Down

A beautiful fall day today prompted me to ask two year old

"Do you want to ride your bike?"

"Yes" he replied sweetly and then informed me "No, I want to just walk"


"No bike? Are you sure?"


I had just found the bike helmet that belonged to his older brother and hopefully tried it on his head to see if it would fit. It was comically large on two year old's head.


"Just a walk, mommy. No bike."


So putting baby in the stroller and grabbing a library book that needed to be returned, we set off to walk to the library (which is delightfully in walking distance for pleasant days such as this).


The thing I did differently today was that I just enjoyed the walk. I didn't try to rush or walk fast or worry about what might happen or what would happen later in the day. I just walked, with my two little boys. This was something that I used to do with the older ones several years ago before life got crazy.


I stopped while two year old grabbed a stick to play with - a sword of course, or maybe a gun.


I stopped to show him a rabbit who was trying to conceal itself in the grass. Delightful to him of course.


I stopped to show him how the leaves were falling off the tree - explained about fall and trees and leaves.


I stopped when he saw dandelions and showed him how to blow the fluff off of the white ones. He did this excitedly several times. And now I will forever have a beautiful image in my head of my little boy blowing away the dandelion fluff.


We got to the library, turned in the book, picked up a few things and walked back.


We stopped when he found more dandelions.


We stopped to see if the bunny was still there.


I showed him the bean pods that fell from one of the trees, how they made a rattling sound and how to crack them open to see the beans inside.


I showed him a pine cone and he brought it with us for a while.


Then close to home we found some sand on the sidewalk where there is some construction going on. I picked up some sand to show him and he spent the next ten minutes pouring it out of his hand and tossing it.


We had a lovely walk. It was most lovely because I just let myself relax, be present and not worry about anything. Something I should do more often.


I think we forget sometimes, or at least I do, how naturally kids and the outdoors go together. I thought today about how everything outside is very forgiving of children. Pulled leaves and grass grow back. Tree bark is tough and durable, sticks are meant to be played with a broken. A severe contrast to inside where many things can be broken, overused or ruined.

I also thought about something that I read that G.K. Chesterton wrote about how as adults we become jaded by sin and so we constantly seek novelty because things no longer impress us. We no longer delight in things like the sunrise and sunset and the changing of the seasons because our sins make us cranky and old. He remarked, if I remember right, that God has a very childlike delight in repetition - since the sun does rise and fall everyday, things follow a certain repetitious pattern.

Slowing down felt good - not worrying makes life much more tolerable. Taking walks will definitely be happening more often for baby, two year old and me.