When my youngest makes the decision to mount a bicycle that weighs as much as she does and rides around the track without tumbling over, it is a BIG thing.
When my seven year old pushes off from shallow steps to journey under water, eyes opened across the deep center of a pool that no longer intimidates her, it is a BIG thing.
When curtains finally get sewn and hung in the bedroom after too many years of procrastination and too many scary stories about the man, whom they believe, comes to their window at night to steal away their peace of mind, it is a BIG thing.
When the day calls us to make all of our favorite things to take to our favorite places because they taste even better when we get to eat them away from home, it is a BIG thing.
When time drifts by unchecked during the construction of sandcastles built from empty containers previously filled with ricotta cheese and sour cream, and memories are firmly patted down upon the warm sand and decorated with glistening, sun-bathed smiles, it is a BIG thing.
I am tempted so often to bring a book to read out loud, something to justify the numerous exits from our studies of Greece and Rome.
Time spent away from the calculations of algebra and the circumference, radius and diameter of a circle, time away from the beginning chapters of ecology and flowering plants and seeds, and Latin.
But I am learning to listen for the voice inside my head that calms my own fears about accomplishment in this hurried life around me. He assures me like all the other times before this one that I am allowed to count these markers. He assures me that they are important and meaningful.
They are the BIG things, every one of them.
1 comment:
I REALLY need to work on my TIME with my kids this year, not my *teaching* time, kwim? Great post.
Post a Comment