Well it was a Sunday, so I must admit that the day started with a lot of rushing around. We go to the 8:30am service at church and to get there even close to time with three little kids is a miracle every single week. But after we made it to church it was a day full of lingering. A friend of mine writes a wonderful blog, Under the Sycamore, and focused one of her posts around the phrase- Linger a Little Longer- and that has resonated with me lately. Life is always full of rushing around, so on days where we don't HAVE to be somewhere, I work hard to say "yes" instead of "no" and just slow down.
The girls wanted to go to the park with DC after church and my initial reaction was to let them go and stay home with G. That would have been the easy thing to do, but instead I spent the next hour or so hanging out with my dad, soaking in the beautiful weather and watching my little girls be little girls.
Just a few treasures from our adventure.
Right before DC left to go back to Louisiana, he told them that he would take them to fly kites the next time he was here. (Let me mention that they LOVE Mary Poppins and thus they love the song, Let's Go Fly A Kite.) So they laid down for naps as soon as he left and woke up a couple of hours later asking if it was time to fly their kites. Kids have no understanding of timeframes, so they will keep asking until DC makes it back to Oklahoma.
Once the girls got up from their naps, we spent the rest of that day enjoying the beautiful weather outside. R and I played dress-up with her doll and put together countless puzzles before Baby Girl woke up and joined us. We ran races across the yard, kicked around the ball, shot baskets, danced and had snacks all while soaking in the sunlight.
I even said yes to letting R use my camera. I took every precaution I could in keeping it safe, but I've learned that when I keep her involved in the photography process she is much more interested and willing to be my constant little model. So I let her pick what she wanted to take pictures of- here are a few of the outtakes.
(Please excuse my make-up less face :)
The other two little girls finally woke up and joined us outside.
Jeff was off enjoying the sunshine, playing golf with some of his brothers and usually by this point I would be counting the seconds until he got home. But there is just something to be said about the peace that came with slowing down. I know that is not always an option, but sometimes it's more about choices. Sometimes we live our lives in such a rush that even when we can slow down we don't know how to. I'm quickly learning that this kind of lifestyle just doesn't work well with my kids. So many times I find myself saying "no" and not really even knowing why. While I know there is no one size fits all approach, and ultimately as parents sometimes we have to work and other things genuinely must get accomplished, I am doing my best to saying "no" to an overcrowded and overbooked schedule, so that I can say "yes" to play dough animals, backyard races and park playdates. There will always be something else I COULD be doing. I just have to ask myself, "Can it wait?"
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