Little Yellow Notepad

It sounds like it’s 5 in the afternoon and all the neighborhood kids are over for a party, but it’s actually just my own kids catching up on each other’s dreams and happenings of the night that passed and its 7:01 AM.

Bleary eyed and yawning, I quickly get dressed and hear tapping on my bedroom door. It’s my 4 yr old and it sounds urgent. “Mommy, do you know what racecar spelled backwards is?!??”

This truly is urgent, at 7:03 AM no less.

“No, what is it?” I ask him, trying to sounds as enthusiastic as he sounds.

“It’s racecar!!” He squeals. Right, of course. No, I didn’t know that.  And that really IS urgent for 7:03 AM. For a 4 year old, that is!

As I finished up and headed downstairs to start the breakfast-get dressed-shoes-socks marathon, all I could think of was hmm, I never did realize that racecar spelled backwards is racecar. That really IS pretty neat. Maybe I knew it when I was 4, but it’s been long forgotten. And I thought of how excited my four year old was to share it with me.

Such an exciting discovery.

Life is so exciting and intriguing at that age; life is just fascinating. So much to see, so much to learn, so much to discover. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter how old you are; life is STILL fascinating and there is so much to learn and discover; only our minds are more muddled with other things and we don’t see it all as clearly.

In reality, we have a choice. We can choose to see life from the battered and worn place we are in or we can choose-with a bit of effort-to see it as a 4 yr old; full of opportunities of learning and growth. It’s not life that changes, it’s us as people that change.

So as I served and cleaned and wiped spills and picked up fallen spoons and answered multiple questions at the same time, while stepping over the crawling 11 month old, I turned to my four year old and with as much enthusiasm as I can find in me before my morning coffee, I told him, “Wow, I never realized racecar backwards is also racecar!!” And silently I added, “and I hope you always have the same enthusiasm for all of life’s lessons and discoveries. And I hope today I can experience that too.”

He beamed.

My ever so philosophical 9 yr old pipes up during supper; “Remember that parable of the poor man who went to the rich guys house and he chose the bell?”

“Sure, what about it?”

I knew just what he was referring to; it’s a parable loaded with life lessons. This poor guy watches in amazement as his wealthy host simply rings his bell at the dinner table and upon hearing the signal of the bell, a whole crew of waiters come out with the most splendid array of foods. When the poor man was offered to choose one thing from the rich man’s house to take home with him, the simple, poor guy choose the bell, not realizing that without the staff, food, money and preparations, no waiters would appear!

“So I did the same thing a little while ago…”  he continues.

Now I’m listening, what was this deep insight he was about to share?

“When I was at my friend’s house a couple weeks ago he had a really cool Lego ship and I asked him for the two pieces on top so I can make the same cool ship at home; I tried it a few times, and it didn’t work; I realized that those were not the pieces I needed! It was the pieces underneath that held it all together, that’s what I needed!”

So philosophical indeed.

How often do we do that; we want the end result and forget the work that leads up to it…

Be it a college degree or a clean house, nothing comes without a plan, structure and action. And same thing with fine, well established and stable adults; you can’t pre-order them, and it starts with tuning into their every needs, like listening to every last detail of the fascinating Lego dragon my 9 yr old is building; or cleaning the toothpaste off the mirror that was deliberately painted there by my budding artists of 3 and 4 yrs old…it’s all part of the same package. And when morning comes and once more everyone rushes to the breakfast table to discover that the only cereal we have is the one they all (including the 11 month old) DO NOT LIKE (I could’ve sworn they all loved it yesterday…) I’ll remind myself the lesson of the Lego and my philosophical 9 yr old’s discovery; it’s not always what you see that counts, its the layers and layers underneath that hold it all together. And that’s what I’ll try to do…hold it all together.

Comment and please share your thoughts! I’d love to hear them!