Finding Joy in Chaos: A Two-Year-Old’s Wisdom

PREFACE

So I am going to warn you this story has an Uber cliche moment. However, it is absolutely how it went down!

A single mother in her 30’s, first child. A boy mom, that’s where I was in my life at the time. I was staying at home raising my son with my older brother. Home was in my grandparents farm house they had built in 78′ out in the sticks.

My grandparents had decided to move out of the city and into the country to retire and watch us grow up. It was becoming unsafe for people to raise families in the city and they’d fallen in love with their weekend camping property. A place that they had made so many of their own memories at already.

I was fortunate to have an older brother who went to work while I raised my son at home. Until the moment my son was born he had completely lost interest in life. He spent the best of the previous 10yrs playing video games and losing himself in his own misery. All because of some girl who did him dirty but that’s all a whole other blog post entirely.

ANTICIPATING CHAOS

So the day started normal, chaos from the light to dark. Single mom going through the motions and most of them in Auto-Pilot. If you’re a mother you’ll understand this, if not I’m sure you can figure it out. Brain in super go mode as we are walking down a busy sidewalk into our local store.

Tucker, my brilliant son of 2 years is pulling against my arm as I march with intent towards the entrance. Hell-bent on getting through this shopping circus in record time, my mind stuck in trying to pre-plan our every move as to bring the chaos that is about to ensue to a quick and fit free end. “Tucker! Please come on bub I am in a hurry. Wow must you be so slow about everything.” I shout, without realizing that I am even doing it.

I am sure we all are aware how quickly tempers can rise when in this type of scenario. Full steam rolling out our ears, flush faced and sweating. As mothers, there are times we find ourselves screaming as if at a rock concert at our unsuspecting toddlers before we even realize our voices are above a level that would be socially acceptable….

cue my son…

THE LESSON

Before I can even register the fact that now half of the parking lot of this store are now staring at the two of us in absolute shock and bewilderment, I turn to see what’s got everyone’s jaws on the ground.  To my now, complete embarrassment, I had been shouting like a raved lunatic at my son, my perfect 2 year old angel, stooped over a handful of wildflowers, there along the walkway, sniffing each one of them smiling from ear to ear, with not a worry in the world. In that hurried moment he literally looked at me and sweetly said, “Mom, we gotta stop and smell the flowers!”

Oh My God..

  What in the ever loving world is wrong with me? What kind of monster had I become? Who am I? I had become everything I had tried so hard not to be, everything I taught everyone else around me not to be. All in that one moment. I was somewhere else when I should have been there with my child. How could I have been so harsh? Why do we as adults do this? Was 5 mins really that important? What matters if the trip takes a little longer than expected? What is time if we aren’t even living it to the fullest anyways? How is it so easy for children to see this but we as adults can’t?

AFTERTHOUGHT

Does life really redirect our brains to pre-plan for future what ifs and miss what’s right in front of us? When does this change happen and can we reverse it? I’ve come to realize, we have got to retrain ourselves to slow down the racing thoughts and be IN our moments in life.

Don’t let the pre-planning, chaos bypassing, intrusive thoughts and auto pilot hours stop us from being present in our kids lives. The time we have on this planet is far shorter than any of us realize before its too late to appreciate what we have. One day we are meeting up with friends at the high school for the football games on friday night and the next moment we are replaying those memories in our heads as we tuck our babies in bed.

Time passes us by so quickly as adults when every moment of our days are spent just going through the motions like mindless zombies.  Let us all remember: Our days are flying by us one after the other and there is nothing we can do to stop them. There is however a way to make them seem to slow down a bit and linger a little longer.

We all need to slow down and stop to smell the flowers y’all!

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