I was working diligently one day in our family room while my then 3-year-old twins were building towers with their Duplos blocks. I had promised to take them into the back yard as soon as I finished a particular section in a lengthy article I was working on.
Then I began hearing the ripping sound of Venetian blinds opening and closing, like a zipper, up and down. I told the boys to be patient, that we would be going outside soon.
After about the third time of telling the twins to please leave the blinds alone, my child’s comment stopped me in my track.
“Mommy!” Mickael-Josef exclaimed in his sweet little 3-year-old, high-pitched voice, “Look, look, the ‘schoene Blumen’. Look, they’re blooming. Look!” (which is kid German mixed with English, for “Look, Look, the pretty flowers are blooming!”)
Forgetting that I was getting irritated about the Venetian blinds, I stopped my writing to turn around to look outside.
Golden, bright yellow daffodils shone like brilliant crowns outside my window on our hill near the creek. Right next to my desk and I had missed them.
Now, I knew that the daffodils were up and budding and all that. But I had been very busy the past few days with work, and, even though the weather had been so spring like, my mind was focused not on flowers but on deadlines.
I had always wanted my own Daffodil Hill. When I was growing up in Corvallis, my friend’s mom used to take us in early spring to the outskirts of town to this hill covered with a blanket of golden King Alfred’s. We called it Daffodil Hill. I have pictures of Jeanie, Julie, Jennifer and me holding bouquets of daffodils and wearing big smiles, while a sea of the bright yellows graced the background.
And here a few decades later, it struck me that I was missing my very own daffodil hill in my very own yard.
I stopped my work, got my twins’ shoes on and told the boys that we are going outside to see the Schone Blumen, the daffodils. And those King Alfreds are stunning. My child had not only noticed that the daffodils are blooming, but that they are pretty. Life through the eyes of a child is sweetness.
We looked around the yard for signs of other flowers coming up, and then picked a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils to light up our dining room.
A few days after the daffodil episode, my 3-year-olds again raised their usual excited voices to tell me of something else I had missed this spring.
“Mommy, it’s a nest, way up high, in the tree,” they managed. Then Wesley dashed over to the refrigerator, explaining as he opened it his intention: “I need to get eggs to put into the nest.”
I smiled and explained to him that the birds would be laying their own eggs, then asked the twins to show me the nest in the tree. And sure enough, nestled up high in our tree by our deck, was a bird’s nest.
I don’t know how long that nest had been there or for how long the daffodils had been in their full glory, but these spring symbols that my little ones pointed out to me sure made me ask myself which lenses I was looking at life through. I had to ask myself which prescription my glasses were in.
Was I seeing life only through the tyranny of the urgent lenses? The lenses that make me rush through life, seeing only the work that needs to be done, and missing the beauty around me? Was I not seeing the little things in life because I was so lost in my busy schedule? Was I not taking the time to smell the proverbial roses?
I thought about children. When they want you to read them a book at a certain moment. Or when they sit down and begin telling you about happenings at school. Or when they want to shoot hoops with you on a sunny afternoon. Or when the littlest ones want to wrestle and be silly with you. Or when they want to sit on your lap and be held. It’s a moment. Just like the daffodils in full bloom. Blink and they’re drooping their heads.
It is sometimes only a moment. And I’m realizing that the moment is short and fleeting. The moment passes. Their sweet little voices and half sentences turn into adult-like conversations. They get busy with their friends. They change their interests.
And scenery changes as well. Daffodil Hill in Corvallis is now a concreted subdivision with large clone houses and narrow yards.
Children are like the daffodils. They won’t wait till you are ready to make time for them. They arrive in their own time. Children and daffodils and nests do not follow anyone’s schedule or timeline or deadline – they beat to their own drummer.
We just have to make sure we don’t miss them, before they fade away and are changed -- or gone.
Then I began hearing the ripping sound of Venetian blinds opening and closing, like a zipper, up and down. I told the boys to be patient, that we would be going outside soon.
After about the third time of telling the twins to please leave the blinds alone, my child’s comment stopped me in my track.
“Mommy!” Mickael-Josef exclaimed in his sweet little 3-year-old, high-pitched voice, “Look, look, the ‘schoene Blumen’. Look, they’re blooming. Look!” (which is kid German mixed with English, for “Look, Look, the pretty flowers are blooming!”)
Forgetting that I was getting irritated about the Venetian blinds, I stopped my writing to turn around to look outside.
Golden, bright yellow daffodils shone like brilliant crowns outside my window on our hill near the creek. Right next to my desk and I had missed them.
Now, I knew that the daffodils were up and budding and all that. But I had been very busy the past few days with work, and, even though the weather had been so spring like, my mind was focused not on flowers but on deadlines.
I had always wanted my own Daffodil Hill. When I was growing up in Corvallis, my friend’s mom used to take us in early spring to the outskirts of town to this hill covered with a blanket of golden King Alfred’s. We called it Daffodil Hill. I have pictures of Jeanie, Julie, Jennifer and me holding bouquets of daffodils and wearing big smiles, while a sea of the bright yellows graced the background.
And here a few decades later, it struck me that I was missing my very own daffodil hill in my very own yard.
I stopped my work, got my twins’ shoes on and told the boys that we are going outside to see the Schone Blumen, the daffodils. And those King Alfreds are stunning. My child had not only noticed that the daffodils are blooming, but that they are pretty. Life through the eyes of a child is sweetness.
We looked around the yard for signs of other flowers coming up, and then picked a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils to light up our dining room.
A few days after the daffodil episode, my 3-year-olds again raised their usual excited voices to tell me of something else I had missed this spring.
“Mommy, it’s a nest, way up high, in the tree,” they managed. Then Wesley dashed over to the refrigerator, explaining as he opened it his intention: “I need to get eggs to put into the nest.”
I smiled and explained to him that the birds would be laying their own eggs, then asked the twins to show me the nest in the tree. And sure enough, nestled up high in our tree by our deck, was a bird’s nest.
I don’t know how long that nest had been there or for how long the daffodils had been in their full glory, but these spring symbols that my little ones pointed out to me sure made me ask myself which lenses I was looking at life through. I had to ask myself which prescription my glasses were in.
Was I seeing life only through the tyranny of the urgent lenses? The lenses that make me rush through life, seeing only the work that needs to be done, and missing the beauty around me? Was I not seeing the little things in life because I was so lost in my busy schedule? Was I not taking the time to smell the proverbial roses?
I thought about children. When they want you to read them a book at a certain moment. Or when they sit down and begin telling you about happenings at school. Or when they want to shoot hoops with you on a sunny afternoon. Or when the littlest ones want to wrestle and be silly with you. Or when they want to sit on your lap and be held. It’s a moment. Just like the daffodils in full bloom. Blink and they’re drooping their heads.
It is sometimes only a moment. And I’m realizing that the moment is short and fleeting. The moment passes. Their sweet little voices and half sentences turn into adult-like conversations. They get busy with their friends. They change their interests.
And scenery changes as well. Daffodil Hill in Corvallis is now a concreted subdivision with large clone houses and narrow yards.
Children are like the daffodils. They won’t wait till you are ready to make time for them. They arrive in their own time. Children and daffodils and nests do not follow anyone’s schedule or timeline or deadline – they beat to their own drummer.
We just have to make sure we don’t miss them, before they fade away and are changed -- or gone.
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