Learn To Stop To Smell The Flowers

Amid the many, many crazy, clueless parental moments are more important "aha!" moments when you know that you're (amazingly) onto something!  And the most important of these "aha" moments don't come through LeapFrog products or Hooked on Phonics programs-they simply come by allowing ourselves and our kids to just BE.

While in Yellowstone, Rocky and I both were amazed at how so many people drove through the park as fast as they could go (we had to pull over A LOT) or walk along the boardwalks and trails without ever looking around them.  They seemed to want to hurry, hurry to the next "point of interest" in their field guide, snap their picture, and hurry, hurry home to catalog their novel trip in their scrapbooks and scratch another thing off their bucket lists.  It is pitiful, really, how much of Yellowstone they didn't have to miss if they could just slow down.

We do a lot of "novel" things with our kids. They get the popular toys that they really only love for about a week, get to go to Alive @ 5 just to play on the bouncy slides, and Billy REALLY REALLY wants to fly on a plane to Disneyland. Some things are admittedly done just to say they have done them.

However, our kids are turning out a lot like me and Rocky.  At Silverwood, Alexa seemed to enjoy smelling the flowers just as much as riding the rides (the photo below is in our backyard-however she ALWAYS stops to smell the flowers!)  Billy will just as soon tell you HOW a geyser works than that he actually got to see one.  Or about the chipmunk that climbed up the ledge at Firehole Falls. Or how he gets to watch his turtle in the yard, and that she is afraid of everything.  The things they remember and most excitedly re-tell are the simple things they pick up just by slowing down and paying attention when they are playing or going on a walk.

I love that they can find joy wherever they are.  This simplicity is something that will always be a part of who they are and something that will hopefully help them be happy no matter what path their lives may take!

**Tonight we took the kids to Uncle Steve's science classroom.  Let me say Billy was full of enthusiasm.  Uncle Steve has SO many books with volcanoes, friendly turtles, frog guts, and dead snakes in jars!  Alexa especially loved the turtles.  Later we went to dinner at the Cattleman's Cafe and Uncle Steve asked Billy if he wanted a treat (chocolate cowboy boot) and he got so excited he almost looked like he was having a seizure!  Even the waitress and neighboring table couldn't help but catch his enthusiasm!