Last week was my kids’ Spring break – all three of them had the week off, and both fortunately and unfortunately, my break fell two weeks earlier. It was great – on my week off I got to catch up on stuff while all the kids were at school, and for once, not feel completely behind. And it was terrible – trying to do a full week’s work with 3 kids off is not easy.
My youngest came with me to Champaign for my weekly 2-day trip, tagging along to share some of my ‘other life’ with me. I make this drive most weeks. It’s 150 long, flat, boring miles (except for the 20 or so as you get near Chicago, which take about an hour in either direction). It was an overcast day, and after about 30 mintues driving south, I start hearing “wow!” I asked “what’s going on back there?” and she says “Look at the clouds! They are so many different colors!”. To my mind they were all grey, and threatening rain, which I wasn’t looking forward to. But she was right. They were lots of colors – from white to deep grey, almost black. They were spectacular.
The next morning, sitting on the bed by the window in our hotel room, she starts pointing and saying “Mommy, Look! It’s so pretty!” She pointed out a flashing letter, the light was obviously dying, as the rest of the letters were fully lit, but to my daughter, it was pretty.
How many of these moments we miss? Both ourselves – because life is too hectic and worrying to recognize the beauty in clouds, and not the impending rain – and by being too buried in our devices to pay attention to the wonder our children bring.
When we got home after about 36 hours together, I heard a whine for the first time since we had left. While the trip was a juggling act for me in terms of bringing together work and parenting, it was also a chance to focus solely on my daughter and not the rest of our family or the competing demands of home and remote work. She had no need to whine – and she was captivated by the things that seem normal, or even stressful, to me, leaving little time for whining.
😍