When children know best

Hi.
This girl has had a hard time sitting still lately, which is why I haven't blogged in almost (gasp!) two weeks. In spite of the motion in my life, a cloudy body of thought has gathered itself somewhere in my head. If I were a more lucid writer or someone with an abundance of silence or wine, I could fill your eyes with words for weeks. But I don't want to work that hard for free. For simplicity's sake, I'll share one thought today and maybe another tomorrow. Consider this....

Sometimes children know best. Speaking more precisely, sometimes my children know better than me. Here is what they know that I almost always forget.

Children remember to look up.

They notice the sky. Without Peyton taking her time and noticing everything around her during the (should be one-minute but ends up being ten-minute) walk from the back door to the car, I don't know how many days would go by that I never once look up and observe our sky--a sky that reminds me what small creatures we are, living among so much life and motion and order that isn't about us nor in need of us. The simple act of looking up takes my focus off of me and my wishes for just a minute. And, although short and too infrequent,  isn't that a respite, to think of ourselves as a small part instead of the whole? The sky above me was crystal blue today and the moon was snow white tonight. Have you looked up yet today?

Children remember to look down.

They marvel at things beneath their feet. While Peyton is busing considering the sky, Harper is a student of the ground, regarding everything from crunchy leaves and swishy puddles, to things fallen from trees and things growing up from the ground. On the same (glacier slow) walk to the car, Harper was the first one this season to notice fallen leaves on the driveway. She takes her time shuffling through them and smiling at me when she makes them crunch with her feet. She finds all the tennis-ball-sized black walnuts that have fallen from the tree at the end of the driveway and kindof grins at them as if they're some kind of new mischief. I grimace at them, because they fall off the tree and hit my car. Things happen that I walk right passed, busy looking in one direction--straight ahead in order to stay on task. I wonder what has happened in the pathways you tread everyday that only children bother to notice.

 Children don't try to own time.

They are flexible. Sometimes children are right on when it comes to how we spend our time. I lean on schedules and routine, trying to own my day and my time maybe a little too much. They don't care what the clock says, or have plans each morning how their time will be used. They don't try to own time. They just play and laugh and learn. And sometimes, lots of times, when I let go of trying to own the day and say yes to spontaneous play when my "schedule" says otherwise, I learn how simple it is to live when you don't try to control the uncontrollable. Sometimes children just know better than me when it's time to follow the heart and not the clock.

I hope that makes sense, because according to my clock it's time for bed. :)