This week I found myself swimming in orders for my home bakery. I truly had too many things to do as I was not only working on my orders but preparing to leave town for the weekend. Then one of my daughters asked me to come get in her rocket ship. As I’m in the middle of starting a fresh batch of cookie dough. I stop and think to myself, “no I don’t have time” but instead I say, “give mommy 10 min, as soon as I finish this dough I will come get in your rocket ship”. She waited for me patiently, going back and forth from her room to the kitchen. Finally she hears the mixer stop and stands beside me with excitement. I wrap the bowl up and put the dough away then follow her to the rocket ship she made. The reality is the rocket ship is a portion of my daughter’s three-piece ball pit. This thing is not intended for me to sit inside but she insists I join her inside, so I squeeze in and sit down. As I’m sitting there she tells me everything she sees and begins naming planets and friends on those planets. I go along with her beautiful imagination and when she says “oh the sun is right there!” Which seems pretty close to us, I say “oh no, it’s so hot being this close to the sun, I need water!!!” She is excited and kindly runs to get me her water cup. Our adventure continues for about twenty minutes before I need to return to finish what I was doing. When I return to the kitchen to continue my day full of tasks, she sits on the couch and says “I had so much fun going on the rocket ship with you mommy”. Then my heart nearly fell out of my body and onto the floor. I realized that what was an average day for me was an extraordinary one for her, because she made it into one.
As I continued throughout my day, I couldn’t help but think of the special moment I had just shared with my daughter, how much it impacted her but also me. It reminded me not to forsake the small things, the little moments. I know first hand how easy it is to stay busy, or find something to do. Sometimes our children are the very best reminders to slow down, pause and take a good look around. What can you take a break from today? Can you take a moment to slow down and pause? The hardest thing for me as a mom currently is to sit and stay a while. I am quick to find something that needs to be done, even if it can wait. I’ll be sitting with my girls playing with Magnatiles and then find myself getting up quickly to start the next load of laundry.
I know the laundry will always be there. I know these little moments with my kids at this young age won’t always be here. So I have to choose to be intentional to “get in the space ship” sometimes. I’m writing this, not to shame you if you don’t have time to do these things with your kids. I write this as a mother who constantly feels like she is fighting against time and a to do list but is giving herself grace in the midst of shifting her intentions. In the spaceship I learned three things from my daughter. 1.) She knows more planets than I thought 2.) she is not only kind but considerate ( she went and got me water when we were close to the sun) 3.) she has a wonderful imagination and wants to take her mom along with her.
I write this to encourage you to get out of your world and step into your child’s, you don’t know what you’ll learn, what you’ll see and you never know how much it’ll impact your child. So I’ll keep it short and sweet, “Get in the space ship”.
Happy Imagining!
xx Classically Faith
