In the morning, when Samuel wakes up, he grabs all of his bedtime stuff - pillow, john deere blankets, stuffed animals - and then comes down with me and sits on my lap. His little head, Â with that blond hair sticking up in the back, rests on my shoulder, and he's content to just sit there. There's no agenda for him - it's this time of waking up, of being with me, of just being - his agenda isn't about busy stuff to get done.
Yet, the stubborn race through everything that needs to get done me tends to sit there and see what all that needs to get finished and what should have been done yesterday. I'll look at the netbook full of emails, or a post to add a picture to, or the dishes that need to get pulled from the dishwasher, and I'll sit there and lose the moment of Samuel wanting to just be with me.
It's five minutes.
Only five minutes, and I'm losing the joy in the minute because I'm letting my busy crowd out the important. I know you have those moments within your day - a cuddle here, tell me a story, look at my invention, just rock in a rocking chair minutes - that are so easy to overlook and race on autodrive by. But, this morning, as I held that sweet boy, I realized that some day soon he won't fit on my lap anymore. He'll be too busy, have an agenda, and he'll forget about those times in the living room with the sun peeking through the curtains spent sitting with mom. These mornings will no longer be the normal, but will instead be the memory.
And then I'll only have the memories, that snapshot of time spent together.
This? This is why I need to slow down and embrace today -- the hugs, the snuggles, the holding of my hand, the arm on my back as I carry them, the little bits of joy. And this is why you need to slow down and embrace today as well.
We're only given a window of time where they fit on our laps, or want to hear a story late at night, or want to ride in the front seat and go get coffee with you, or share the wonder of the rainbow found in the sky. What are we doing with these moments? Are we aware and willing to let go of the urgent to-do lists? Or are we just racing through them thinking that we can grab onto that snapshot of time tomorrow? These moments are finite....you can't go back and grab them again. You can embrace them today, but you need to slow down, and to train yourself to let go of the agenda and take the time.
Don't rush through today to just get to tomorrow. The tomorrows will come and eventually these sweet moments will just become nostalgic memories. My Captain America loving Samuel is growing up and for now I'm going to sit on our worn couch with him in my lap and I'm going to breathe deep - remembering these mornings with him and his sleepy body waking up in my arms. .
Slow down. Embrace today.
That's the goal.
Where are you rushing through your day and missing out on a gift tucked within today?
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