Emergency Brakes...

I have been watching my kids growing up right before my very eyes lately and it makes me want to stop time for a minute. I just want to enjoy them in this stage of life and drink in their cuteness and their quirks and their sillyness...everything about them.



I think this is all coming from a little bit of panick to be honest. Ridge is starting kindergarten this year and Carly is going into 2nd grade and I don't want this summer to end. I am so enjoying having Carly home. We have (accidentally) started this ongoing pretend world in which she is the delightful, hardworking, polite and lovable Malia. A southern girl who works as the town's stagecoach driver. She is quite the driver, let me tell you! She made it to California and back and then to Hawaii and back...all before dinner when we were to have a barn dance! She helped me move the table and chairs and mop the floor (in which she commented, "wow mom, this is hard work!") She then helped me wash the chairs (to prepare for the barn dance of course... they had to be presentable!) She has helped me deliver packages (put things away for me.) And is ever so polite to my two young boys! We have been pretending this for two days now (much to Ridge's angst! He keeps letting me know that he doesn't like it when I talk in a southern accent!) Carly is loving it, and we are getting so much done and getting along so well. It's funny, but she has started into a little selfish phase, but Malia is such a polite and hard working girl...and her character is carrying over into the real world! Carly was so cute today, helping Ty and being very responsible and trying to remember her manners. She asked me if we could keep pretending last night and we could make up the story all summer. If it brings peace and harmony to our home all summer long and gives me a connection to this fast growing child like it has so far...you bet!!



Another spark to this panick happened when we were going through some of the kids toys this weekend. Carly chose to get rid of some of her little dolls and some dress up costumes she has spent so much of her little lifetime with. My heart screeched to a halt and then started pounding in my chest. I couldn't believe it! I wanted her to keep them just for me. I didn't want her to be growing out of them already. How did this happen?



So this brings me to the title of this post. I had a little car that had an emergency brake in the middle console. I had to use it once or twice, and I noticed that (surprisingly) it didn't stop the car completely, but instead slowed the car down. I've needed that little emergency brake for my life lately. I need life to slow down so I can get to really know my kids and drink them in. I feel like I always have something important to do, I am always telling the kids to wait a minute so I can finish something.



Well I've figured out what my emergency brake is. It's living in the moment. It's telling myself, "wait a minute, I have to do something important", and I need to attend to the little requests of my kids. ("Mom, tie my shoe. Mom, open this. Mom, come and look at this. Mom, watch this!) I want my kids to know they are important to me and I want a good relationship with them. I'm so glad they want to show me something they think is cool. I don't want to wake up in three years and wonder where the time went and how my kids grew up right before my very eyes. I don't want to miss the important things because I am doing the everyday things. So I'm pulling my emergency brake and making a goal to live a little more in the moment because after all...



Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.



Life is good, Lisa