operating on his speed

My littlest and I.

My days are peppered with declarations of his love for me.

He's my little shadow.

In the 18 months that we've been mother and son our hearts have been woven together in amazing ways.

And yet there is one thing that is still drastically different between us...

It's the speed in which we operate.  I've got long legs made for walking and have the mentality of "we're burning daylight here folks, quit wasting time."

And he has legs that barely fill out size 3T jeans and the mindset to stop and smell the roses.

Often our internal speedometers cause us to lovingly butt heads.  After walking his siblings to school some mornings I'm ready to get home to get our day started, yet he wants to stop and investigate every earthworm and acorn that catches his eye.

Or take our venture to a regional science museum last week.  It's about 45 minutes away and it's crazy expensive.  But we were going with a friend who had passes for us to get in free.  Now I've heard time and time again how cool this place is ~ and of course how much there is to do there.

So in my mind I start planning out how Daniel and I are going to explore every inch of the complex.  My agenda involved moving to a new location every few minutes to fully maximize our time.

But little D had a totally different thought process.

My master plan began to derail at our very first exhibit.  Within seconds it was clear that we weren't going to be going anywhere for a while.

I found myself checking the time several times before I decided (admittedly it was almost a painful decision) that while seeing all the museum had to offer would be nice, our visit was free...and my little one having the time of his life.

Therefore my agenda was tossed.  And we hung out in the seasonal train exhibit...for a very, very, long time.  Eventually we did make it outside to play some music for about five minutes.  

And then we stopped at the pre-school play area....also for a very, very. long time.  Because if there is one thing that Daniel finds more fascinating than trains...it's a repetitive motion ball track.

  And this play area had TWO of them.

Eventually when he started to show signs of being tired and ready for his peanut butter sandwich, I used just the magic words to coax him away from the track.

"Hey Daniel, we're about to go, but we'll stop back by the trains for 10 minutes if you make the choice to come right now."

He was off in a flash ~ and oh so happy to be back to his train.  And for 10 minutes he mastered making the train slow down, speed up, and stop exactly when and where he wanted.  You couldn't have washed the smile off his face ~ and I have to admit it was contagious.

By the time we left we certainly did not see he entire museum.  Not even 1/4.  Just a few exhibits really.

However, those that we explored, we saw fully.  At dinner that night he was able to give a detailed description of the train room and how he got to operate some of the trains.  He explained how the ball tracks went back and forth and how one of them had a loop-de-loop.  We missed the Insectarium exhibit, the dinosaur trail, and the catch the wind exploration zone.  But his animation at dinner as he relived our morning was priceless.

And so I learned an important lesson from my boy that morning.

There is joy in focusing on the here and now instead of hurrying off to the next thing.  Sometimes it is okay to slow down and operate on his speed.